


Show Me How To Love (And I'll Show You How To Live)

by slutpunk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Anal Sex, Asphyxiation, Drama, M/M, Multi, Murder, Mute Castiel, Oral Sex, Romance, Sexual Content, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:31:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slutpunk/pseuds/slutpunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's broken and he's 95% sure he's always been broken. He's a Fed because he used to believe it would do some good and now? He's not so sure. Castiel knows he's broken and he can't be fixed. He does as he's told, kills who his uncle tells him to kill, and pretends that the nightmares don't wake him up anymore. But they find some solace, some peace in each other, until the day it all comes crashing down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, there are so many thanks to give out I don't even know where to begin. So let's begin with the most obvious: to my beta, Annabelle (quiddative/beyondthesevoices), thank you so much for your hard work and attention to detail. I definitely could not have made something so marginally awesome without your help! To my alpha, Martha (komodobits/allpointsnowhere) thank you so much for being such a hardass and saying all the things I might not have wanted to hear. Honorable mentions go out to Kelsey, Robby, and everyone else for even taking the time to glance over bits and give me your opinions. Major thank yous to the mods, hils and especially dehavilland for dealing with all my crazy problems and being so nice about it. 
> 
> And a motherfucking round of applause for MK (alt6/spookacat) for being a fucking champ and finishing all this beautiful art (http://alt69.livejournal.com/20053.html) in just two days! I honestly don't know what I would have done without such talent to push me to make something worthy of her skill. Love you, darling! 
> 
> Last, but definitely not least, thank you so fucking much to my darling, Kayleigh (newbluemoon/losechesters). Kayleigh, seriously, I probably would not have gotten so far without your constant support, without you to listen to me whine, or you thinking my crap was awesome even when it was just crap. Seriously, bb. Thank you!
> 
> And, of course, thanks to you for even taking the time to read my story. I really hope you enjoy it, or at least find it mildly entertaining! Thank you.

The dream is always the same.

Ash chokes his throat and smoke fills his mouth. All he can smell is burnt meat as he crawls through the rising flames around him. Stay down, they say. Stop, drop and roll, they say. But it doesn’t happen that way. Nothing is ever like they say it will be.

This is what they say Hell is like, fire and brimstone raining down on you, punishing you, choking you, burning anything good and beautiful out until there’s nothing left. But what they don’t know is that Hell isn’t underground, it’s not waiting in the afterlife – it’s here. It’s right in front of him, it’s pulling him in and it won’t let go.

He’s tried to get away from the dreams, tried to stop sleeping, tried to visit doctors who want to prescribe drugs (he refused) and all told him the same thing. Post-traumatic stress disorder, they say. It will pass, they say. But nothing ever helps. The dreams always come and they are always the same.

The screaming is coming from her room and he crawls out of bed, knowing that he needs to save her. Except he can’t move fast enough and her screaming doesn’t stop, it won’t stop even if he manages to get there in time. He already knows this, and yet still he goes.

Heat is on him then, above him and surrounding him until he can’t breathe anymore and there’s pain bubbling over the skin of his back. But still he crawls because he can’t do anything else. The screaming won’t stop until he gets to her, he has to save her and that’s the only way he’ll save himself.

But the dream is always the same and he will never reach her.

He’s outside a door, reaching his hands for the doorknob except they’re not his hands. They’re too small, a child’s hands and the doorknob sears him when he reaches for it. He can hear the screaming louder now, as if she’s right in front of him, screaming directly into his ear, begging for him to save her.

No one can save her, no one can save him. The dream always ends the same and neither of them is saved.

The screaming builds and builds and the fire is still on him, scorching through the clothes on his back and he can feel his skin bubbling, but still he tries to open the door, to save her, to make the screaming stop.

In the end, the dream is always the same and when he wakes, his skin is on fire and the screaming is ringing in his ears.

 

 

“You can’t mess this up, _boy_.”

The office they sit in is small, but what can you expect? This is the Federal Government and, even at Bobby’s pay grade, a three by six office with no windows - but at least it has a enclosed walls - is the best they can do.

Bobby’s voice is a low growl, just audible above the sound of photocopiers and phones ringing in the cubicle spaces just outside the door. Stacks and stacks of books and papers litter his desk, even more are stuffed in the cabinets behind him. A year ago the head honchos tried to reorganize all filing systems into one that promised to be compact and universal, but within a week of their minions coming in to his place to get some order going, Bobby’s office looked like a tornado blew through (also known as a triple homicide that was later linked to occult terrorist cells and handed off to National Security).

The man shifts uncomfortably in his suit, his hair brushed to the side with the harsh, messy strokes of a comb and falling out of place even though it’s barely ten in the morning. Dean’s already picturing Robert Singer somewhere woodsy and quiet, wandering around with a hunting rifle over his shoulder and, in his mind, Bobby smiles. But here, in the towering concrete of New York City, Bobby’s mouth is turned down into a stern frown.

“I know that, Bobby.”

The thick beard that encompasses his face wiggles as he speaks. “Do you? ‘Cause I swear if I have to deal with another shit storm like the last time, I’ll—“

“I know! I said I know, Bobby.”

Bobby’s voice goes quiet then and he gives Dean a look that can only be exasperated (a word Dean learned from the word-a-day desk calendar Sam got him one year). Familiarity ripples through him. Suddenly he is twelve years old again and Bobby is bearing down on him, scolding him for stealing Sammy’s Superman action figure. John Winchester and Bobby Singer had been partners, and friends, once. When Dean was twelve, Bobby was called Uncle Bobby. Now, he wouldn’t call Bobby that even if someone were pointing a gun to his head.

And Dean really does know. Bobby’s eyes get that shine in them, the one that just reeks of pity that Dean doesn’t want or deserve. But instead of turning away from it, Dean waits it out. Bobby can’t keep this up forever.

Bobby caves, jaw tightening and showing all the signs of a stress headache before digging through the piles on his desk, murmuring something about rules being bent into pretzels and Dean doesn’t want to know. “Here’s the case file.”

Dean practically sags in relief. “What are we looking at?”

“Nation-wide murders. It’s gory shit, son. Perp strings ‘em up and slices and dices like he’s making dinner.”

Bobby’s right, the guy is gory. Dean flips through pictures and crime reports, and his stomach only makes a weak protest. Photo after photo of various body parts covered in blood, bruises, and gashes flash before his eyes. He wishes he didn’t feel so numb, so detached. In some photos, the bodies don’t even look human. But Bobby’s words make him pause.

“He doesn’t actually—“ Dean makes a vague gesture to his mouth.

“Not that we know of.”

“Awesome.” Dean shakes his head wearily.

The deep blue of Bobby’s eyes narrow into a wrinkled glare and he grunts in disapproval, “You and Henriksen head out to the vic’s place, interview parents, you know the drill. Find out whatever you can.”

Dean nods, still paging through the police reports when the last page of the folder forces him to grind to a halt. “Wait. This last victim. It says her name was Rachel Giordano. As in Michael Giordano’s kid?”

“One in the same.” Bobby nods, the sound of his hand scrubbing through the thickness of his beard echoing in the cramped office space. “Organized Crime’s still can’t pin anything on the guy, but now that his daughter’s involved, he’ll have to at least cooperate with us.”

“Yeah, that’ll be the day. You really think he’ll want to talk to us?”

“She was his only kid, as far as we know. Doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in, no parent wants to bury their child.”

 

 

If there’s one thing that Dean has learned it’s that everyone has a story that brought them to the Bureau, that made them choose this life. Bobby’s no different.

A young man and a young woman walk out of a restaurant. She cradles a hand over her swollen belly, telling him that their son is kicking again. The young man places his hand to her stomach as well and feels the foot of his son against the palm of his hand, and marvels at this miracle he helped to create.

They round the corner and find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun, clutched in the trembling hand of a small time gang-banger. He demands their money, wallet, jewelery. They give these items over easily, though their hands are beginning to shake as well. When he demands their wedding rings, the young man takes a step forward, intending to ask the gang-banger to take what they've given him and leave.

The gang-banger jumps at the sudden invasion of his space and when he does, the gun fires two shots. He's already disappeared around the corner when the young man begins pressing his hands to the holes in his wife's body. He holds her, praying as hard as he can as they take her into surgery and fight to save Karen, even if they can't save the baby.

But they don't save anyone and days later Bobby buries Karen and James, side by side.

He doesn’t pray anymore.

 

 

When Dean leaves the office, Victor Henriksen is waiting for him.

“Hey, Winchester. I see you finally got your ass off your couch and back into work.” Vic is smiling as they shake hands. He’s teasing, but his eyes are searching, looking for that silent confirmation that Dean is okay.

“Yeah, yeah, keep laughing while I do all the hard work, as usual, dickwad.”

Dean and Victor have been partners for a few years now, but they knew each other before that. Granted, at first Dean had fucking hated the guy. They met at the Academy and were in a constant battle for top scores in all subjects. Dean was still young, still trying to find some way to get out of his father’s shadow and cast one of his own, and to have a guy like friggin’ Victor Henriksen around who kept on outdoing him at every turn was like getting sucker punched.

Until the day that Victor really did sucker punch him while they were sparring during hand-to-hand training and next thing Dean knew they were hanging out together and studying together and when they graduated and went to work in NYC, they were partnered together.

They make their way through the busy offices, dodging the other worker bees, stopping to say hi to those they know and Vic fills him in on the gossip he missed out on. It’s easy to fit in this place. He’s been in and out of these offices since he was two years old, coming in with his dad on the mornings that Mary Winchester was working early or the daycare was closed. At least, up until mom died and then Sammy and him would get dropped off at the neighbour’s. It feels easy - like breathing - to be back in this place again, surrounded by people he knows, back at a job he inherently understands and some times enjoys. It’s easy here to forget why he feels like an exile finally returning home.

It was only two months, but to Dean it felt like a year. This job was all he knew, it was what he was meant to do and to step away from that - to be _pushed_ away from it - had been like telling him he couldn’t have apple pie anymore or, you know, worse. At least, that’s what he told himself when he was trying to lighten up and forget the whole thing.

But there are still stares, still lingering, sympathetic looks. Passing by Chuck’s desk and waving, the man’s smile barely reaches his eyes and his brows curl like a tilde above them. Becky is bright and chipper as usual, but restrained somehow. She clutches the files in her hands close to her chest, her posture too straight, shoulders tight, everything reigned in. Over the top of his cubicle, Dean can see Chuck watching them, making wild gestures for Becky to come over, to stop talking. She is gone before Dean could ask her how she was doing.

He tries not to show how much that bothered him, tries to let it roll off him just like he did with everything else. Victor’s gaze is on him, questioning and open, but he doesn’t say anything. Good. Dean really does not want to have that heart to heart right now.

If this was Sammy Dean was with, he’d already be having the third degree. Sam’s brow would be crinkled up, his mouth turned down and lips pursed tight together. Maybe even flipping his hair around and propping his hands on his hips. But not Vic. Henriksen just keeps an eye on him, body language open constantly like this is the interrogation room and Dean’s the interviewee. Always turned towards him, legs and arms uncrossed, open to hear anything and everything that Dean feels like spilling.

It isn’t that he has anything against Vic, Dean just isn’t the guy who went around throwing his problems in other people’s faces. No matter how much of a friend Dean considers Victor, there are some things he just can’t talk about. Which is probably why Vic doesn’t bother asking.

Dean couldn’t really say that they knew each other well until two years ago (seven years into their partnership), Vic invited Dean over for a birthday party for his daughter.

It was a quiet affair, mostly just close relations of Victor’s and his wife’s and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Nancy was adopted. The girl looked nothing like her parents, her skin a light olive where Victor and his wife were each a deep, rich brown. She was turning seven that day, but she hardly seemed excited about it. There was a caution about her, like she didn’t trust herself to relax and Dean found himself treating her like he would a wild animal, one that had been caged up somewhere small and alone. No sudden movements, no getting in too close, bright smiles and kind words. It took some time, but by the end of the party Nancy would smile back.

He found out later that he wasn’t far from the truth.

Nancy had come from an abusive home and had often been left in the basement by herself for weeks at a time. There was more to her story of course, but Dean didn’t ask. After that day, Dean looked at Victor and he could see how deeply the man loved his daughter, even if she wasn’t his own blood, and he knew that she is why he’s here.

 

The job won’t be simple, but then again, it never is. Maybe that’s what keeps Dean here. There’s the helping people, saving people part, of course, but the thing is they usually don’t get to save anyone. Their perp goes around the country killing and murdering innocents, but the case doesn’t reach Dean’s desk until the body count gets high enough. And even then the murderer’s figured out the Feds are on his trail and conveniently disappears. You never realize how big America is until someone just vanishes from your radar. Then what can they do? Get IT to put the guy’s face on their web page, add him to the queue of cases to be shown on America’s Most Wanted and hope that his face gets out there before more people die or the damn show gets canceled. Or maybe the perp dies and they won’t even know it.

The most Dean can hope for anymore is to get the guy in a courtroom and pray that he gets a life sentence. That hope that at least, maybe, he can stop more killings from happening is the thing that keeps him going now, keeps him here. At least he can do that.

And the one time it hadn’t been enough was the time he’d almost lost it all.

Dean’s father never had as much trouble when he was with the Bureau. Then again, John Winchester had a way of getting things done, no matter what the cost. Even if that cost some times included his boys. John Winchester was virtually a hero around the New York City headquarters, had been widely decorated and commended for his service, and by the time he died (heart attack, of all things) his name had become a damn near legend among the Agents.

After that last case, it was more John Winchester’s reputation that saved Dean rather than his own. Bobby had put in a good word for him, even though he had several bad words for Dean in private. Plus, John had been friends with a lot of people higher up in the hierarchy, like Ellen Harvelle and Rufus Turner, who only put him on unpaid suspension as some kind favor to his dead dad.

It wasn’t that Dean was unappreciative, of course. John had always tried to be a good father to his sons, despite their situation. But that didn’t stop Dean from wanting to make a name for himself, to be more than John Winchester’s son.

 

 

The smell of disinfectant is always stronger here than anywhere else. Just that smell has Dean’s stomach bottoming out and bundling into a tight coil of knots. He doesn’t stop, however, as he heads down the long corridor with several class encased labs on either side. He doesn’t need to read the plaques on the doors to know which lab he needs, it’s the same one he visits every time he gets a new case.

“Hey, Dean! Victor! Couldn’t wait to get back in, huh?” Sam says as Dean and Victor waltz into his lab, not even glancing up from the microscope his eyes are glued to, but Dean can see the smile hiding there. The door shuts behind them and seals off most of the daily noise of people passing by and names being called over the intercom.

“Well, I knew you’d be missing me, Samantha.” Dean’s fingertips itch in such a clean and well ordered place.

“Yeah, about as much as I’d miss a hemorrhoid.” Sam still hasn’t looked up from his microscope, fingers fiddling with the settings.

“Shut up.” Dean mutters, just barely audible over Victor’s snorts. It feels good to have some normality back.

Instead of answering, Sam just grins as he pulls away from the microscope, carefully removes the slide he was examining and places it back in its tray. A black device encircling the curve of his ear is just barely visible through the curtain of Sam’s hair.

Sam moves around the lab like it’s home and, in many ways, it is. Sam was some years behind Dean in getting into the Bureau, but he was also four years younger and his degree had taken much more time. Little Sammy had been hell bent on Stanford since high school, probably - Dean suspected - because he wanted to get as far away as possible for Over-Protective Dad of the Year John Winchester. He’d only returned a few years ago, when their dad died. Before that he’d been working for the L.A.P.D. C.S.I. team, but after John was in the ground, Sam stayed and joined up with the Bureau. More and more, Dean was beginning to think that Sam wanted to keep an eye on _him_.

Not that it was necessary, of course

“I guess you guys here about the Punisher?” Sam asks as he pulls blue, plastic gloves off and tosses them safely away, shaking back his stupid girly mane of hair that just keeps getting longer no matter how many times Dean tells him to get a damn hair cut.

“As in Frank Castle?” Henriksen replies, and Dean and he share a confused, panicked look.

Sam’s laugh is light with just a faint ring of condescension as he moves into his office, a room encased mostly in glass like the rest of the labs, but with blinds for privacy. Two doors allow Sam to have access to at least two labs whenever he needs. Dean can still hear Sam’s voice when he had just started exclaiming how awesome it was to have two labs of his own. He and Vic follow Sam into his office and take a seat, while his brother goes to the massive filing cabinet behind his desk. The folder he withdraws is thick and cumbersome and Dean recognizes it immediately as the coroner’s and C.S.I. reports, much more detailed than the briefing folder Bobby had given him.

“No, man! That’s what we’ve been calling the guy you’re after.” Finding the file he needs, Sam hands it over to Victor, “It’s his M.O.”

“What do you mean?” Dean doesn’t even bother looking at the file Victor’s poring over as he slouches down, legs splayed, in the chair. That science crap has always been Sam and Victor’s thing, as evidenced by the many poker nights spent listening to the two of them discuss DNA and atoms and a whole bunch of other nerdy crap instead of focusing on the _game_.

“Well, judging from the autopsy reports, that’s what he’s doing. He’s not just in it for the fun – although that definitely is a big part of it – he wants to punish them too. Here—” Sam holds his hand out for the folder and Henriksen hands it over almost reluctantly. Nerd. Thumbing through the pictures until he finds the right one, Sam lays out a series of photos for them.

As he leans in close, Dean already recognizes the scene from the brief glance he got in Bobby’s office. He knows that in the other pictures, the body is suspended from the ceiling, but all the images Sam’s laid out are close-ups of skin laid open by the clean cut of a knife.

“Take a look at the depth of the cuts here. He’s cutting around some major arteries, but he’s not going deep enough to hit them. This is all methodical, the way he soaks the knives in acid, even the raping. There’s always the element that he’s enjoying what he’s doing, but he’s also being very careful about it, he’s using the pain to punish them. He’s making them feel pain, extreme amounts of pain from what I can judge, but he wants them to stay alive to feel it too. Punishment.” Others in this department might have been satisfied and proud that they could puzzle that out, but not Sam. Never Sam.

“Jeez, Sam, way to make a creepy case even creepier.” Dean’s attempt to lighten the mood doesn’t work. It rarely does. Already there’s a thick coil of anger in the pit of his gut and when he glances at Vic the man’s jaw is tight. “How long does he keep it up for?”

“Anywhere between three to seventy-two hours, I—“ Thankfully, Sam is cut off.

Ash bursts in to Sam’s other lab, carrying a box full of wires and maybe a computer or two. His trademark mullet is still in place (even though the lab’s manager, Frank Devereaux, keeps threatening to cut it off while Ash sleeps), but at least he’s wearing a lab coat over his worn jeans and torn flannel button-down shirt as is required by the rest of the C.S.I. science whiz kids. But Ash isn’t like the other C.S.I. nerds in this place. For one thing, he’s younger than all of them and he’s the Assistant Manager to Devereaux.

“Hello, ladies!” Ash calls as he dumps his box of junk on the first free counter space he can find, and Dean takes the crease of a frown between Sam’s eyebrows (probably over whether or not that junk would corrupt his samples with its mere presence) as his cue to leave.

“Well, thanks, Sam. We’ll get out of your luscious hair and let you get back to work.” Sam is giving him one of those bitchface looks he must have learned in Stanford. “I’ll call you if something comes up.”

Before he can escape, though, Sam’s grabbing on to his arm and pulling him back inside the office with a friendly wave to Vic. And because he’s too polite to say anything, Henriksen slinks away. Wuss.

“ _Dude, are you sure you’re okay to come back?_ ” Sam signs as soon as he releases Dean’s arm and Dean rolls his eyes. If Sam’s trying to have a private conversation, he’s not being very subtle about it. Dean can see a flash of worry on Henriksen’s face when he glances over at the man. But Vic’s never been one to meddle and soon he starts up a very loud and boisterous conversation with Ash, something having to do with the 90s being a bad time for everyone.

“ _I’m fine, don’t be such a baby_.” Dean signs back, his hands a little more jerky than he intended. He balls one hand into a fist, short nails biting into his skin. Sam doesn’t notice as he’s rolling back his shoulders and signing back just as vigorously.

“ _I’m not being a baby, I just want to make sure you’re ready so soon—_ “

Dean brings his right hand down onto the palm of his left, hard. Stop. Sam stops obediently, lips pursing and Dean sighs, forcing himself to focus on the conversation at hand, as it were.

“ _Don’t worry about me, all right? Worry about the case. I’ll deal with the rest later_.” Later meaning never.

Sam shakes his head, wearing that placating, motherly look as he claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

There was a time when Sam’s hands were only as big as Dean’s palm. Dean can still remember sitting with Sam day after day, going through each phrase that he learned at school, learning them with Sammy.

Dad tried, of course, but never hard enough. He had work to worry about too and usually left them to their own devices. They taught him what they could, when they could, but he was still far behind. It came in handy when they wanted to have conversations without John knowing what they were talking about.

Dean was never bitter because he got why their dad pushed himself so hard: he was saving up to get an implant for Sammy. He’d explained it a couple of times to Dean, in those rare moments he was home, when he didn’t look like he was on the verge of losing everything. He would tell Dean how wanted Sam to have a normal life, to be able to hear like all the other normal kids could and Dean understood because he wanted that too. He wanted Sammy to be able to play on the playground with the other kids without having to be watched by teachers and aides every minute of the day. He wanted Sammy to be in class with the normal kids, learning normal kid things like reading and writing instead of learning how to speak with his hands.

When he turned fourteen, Dean got his first job (busing tables at the Chinese place down the block) and all of the money he made was packed away for Sam’s implant. Most dads might have told Dean that he didn’t have to, that the money was his, that he’d earned it; but not John Winchester. The first time Dean handed John his paycheck, John only nodded then told him to go clean the Impala. And Dean had only said, “Yes, sir,” and did as he was told. Between the two of them, John and Dean managed to save up the rest by the time Sam turned thirteen. After the surgery and recovery time, the speech impediment Sam had for most of his life faded fast and music blasted from his room for hours. Dean and John never complained.

Some times Dean wondered if the reason why Dad had pushed so hard to ‘fix’ Sam was because he blamed himself for the accident. Some part of him was sure of it, in fact.

This time it really was an accident. The doctors couldn’t exactly say how or why, but they theorized that the smoke from the fire had caused an infection which left permanent damage. They spilled all sorts of medical jargon that Dean didn’t understand because in the end all it taught him was that hospitals sucked and doctors were idiots.

 

 

Departing with a wave, and ignoring the worried looks Sam is sending him, Dean follows Henriksen head back to their offices. Well, office is an overstatement. Their desks are crammed in with several others without the relative privacy of a cubicle wall. The Bureau doesn’t dick around when it comes to their employee’s productivity. the desks are laid out in sets of two facing each other. For the first time since he started working for the Bureau, Dean’s glad that their desks are far off from the other agents, in the far corner by the bathrooms. He knows that people are staring, maybe even whispering behind their hands, talking about what he did, maybe even speculating that the only reason he wasn’t fired was because of who his daddy was. They’d be right.

But it doesn’t matter. He can’t afford to waste time worrying about what they think. Why would he care anyway? They have a job to do. More importantly, Dean has a job to do.

His desk is piled with stacks of paper, the shitty government computer that was probably made around the time Sam was turning ten hidden beneath it all. There are a few sentimental trinkets scattered around: the Led Zeppelin concert tickets he went to with Vic two summers ago; a picture of Sam on the day he graduated from university (Dad was on a case and couldn't make it, but no force on heaven, earth, or hell could have stopped Dean from being there); and buried in some dark corner is a small velvet box with a ring of gold and a diamond raised from its center, covered in thick layer of dust. Most days he tells himself that he keeps forgetting to throw it away, to sell it, but the truth is that he doesn’t know if he can.

There’s not much talking as he and Vic settle down to work. It takes a few calls, but eventually they have all the information they need, compiled by Becky and Chuck most likely, reports from local police all over the great states. Sam’s report is in there too and, even though Dean already has of the rundown from the man himself, he reads every single word and commits it to memory. Approximately six cups of coffee later, Dean is wishing they made mind bleach for this kind of fuckery.

The killings started in April and, as far as the local police could tell, there was no pattern. A maiming here, a maiming there. The victims were never the same either: most times it was a girl, but so far there had been one male. And each of them was as different from each other as apples and oranges. Jessica Lee Moore, student, twenty-one, found raped and murdered in her apartment in Palo Alto, California. In the beginning, her death hadn’t really stood out among a lot of the gang-related killings in the area, other than the utter cruelty in the way she was killed. When the police arrived, much of her body had already been consumed by the pigeons and crows that had flown in through the open window. Autopsy said there might have been a possibility that she was still alive when they started pecking. Most gangs tended to beat their victims to death, but this was too methodical, even in it’s chaos. Still, local PD hadn’t looked any more into it, just added it to their growing stack of unsolveds.

Then, barely a week after that, Pamela Barnes, palm-reader, thirty-four, was found dead at home in Lovelock, Nevada. C.O.D. was listed as strangulation, but somehow Dean believed the blood loss had more to do with it. He recognized the clinical tone of Sam’s voice in the autopsy as it described the way she was cut, not too deep, but not too shallow, her killer draining the blood out of her and collecting it in small yellow bowls from her kitchen. Once the blood clotted, the killer would place a bandage over it and make another cut. Over and over he repeated the process, gathering bowls and bowls of Pamela’s blood and placing it around her in circles. Somewhere around then he’d found the time to rape her too. When she had been found, the room in her basement had been littered with bowls of blood, and Pamela herself was hanging from the ceiling by a noose around her neck. The noose hadn’t killed her, not really – it had been loose enough that she could stand perfectly fine, but as the blood loss made her weaker and weaker, she finally came to a point where she couldn’t hold herself upright anymore and choked to death hunched over the bowls of blood scattered around her.

There were six of them in total, each of them as gruesome as the next. Cassie Robinson, journalist, twenty-one, Salt Lake City, Utah – multiple cigarette burns, raped, the bones in her hand and arms shattered with a sledgehammer, C.O.D.: stabbed in the heart with the handle of a wooden spatula. Adam Mulligan, mechanic, twenty-two, Rawlin, Wyoming – strips of skin carved off his back (possibly eaten, since CSI couldn’t find them on the crime scene), raped and sodomized with a tennis racket, C.O.D.: strangulation via said racket. Casey Williams, bartender, thirty-one, Newton, Iowa – forced to walk around her home with stones weighing at least ten pounds each strapped to her shoulders, elbows, and knees, raped, C.O.D.: exhaustion and dehydration.

And then there was the latest, Rachel Giordano.

 

 

“I understand, sir. No, I’m sure he’ll cooperate. Well, what other choice are you giving him? Yes, sir. Yes. I will.”

He hangs up the phone and turns to his cousin with pursed lips. They are going to do this, they have to. What other choice do they have? Except when Balthazar turns to Castiel all gets back is a carefully blank stare and a clenched jaw.

“Oh, come on! It’s just a job, like all the others!” Lie, lie, lie, Balthy. And judging from the way Castiel’s glaring at him, it’s not a very good lie.

A clenched jaw and a firm shake of the head.

“Jesus, Castiel—” Balthazar throws his hands up in the air because what else can he do? The job was ordered, it has to be done. And only Castiel can do it. But only he could convince him to in the first place. Vicious, fucked up circle is what it was. He looks around the sparse apartment for inspiration and finds none. The room holds only a twin sized bed in the corner of one room, a small shelf of books next to a dresser and closet, a bathroom off to the side and not much else. There’s a kitchen somewhere, but Balthazar’s never actually been in it. Some bachelor pad this was. He sighs, “At least tell me why. Oh, don’t give me that crap, sign it out, you wretch.”

Cloth rustles as Castiel’s hands move in short jerks, a vein in the line of his jaw ticking furiously, “ _I do not take orders from Lucifer anymore_.”

There. “Yes, well, this one isn’t coming from him now. This one’s from the top.” Balthazar sees his cousin’s hands waving again and interjects quickly, “It’s from Michael. About Rachel.”

That gives the other man pause. He almost seems to shrink into himself and it’s painful for Balthazar to watch. He knows that Castiel doesn’t like to think of it, but he also knows that it was necessary to tell him. They need him.

“This job, Castiel. It’s for her.” His ridiculous trench coat seems to swallow him up and Balthazar wants to step forward, to grab for Castiel like he used to when they were kids before they were forbidden to touch him. But he can’t. So he gives the only comfort he can, “Lucifer managed to track down the guy that did it. And she’s not the only one either.”

Balthazar watches as Castiel’s face crumples, as he bows his head until Balthazar can see nothing but dark hair. Castiel’s hopeless and he’s helpless. What a pair they make. He’s always taken care of Castiel after everything, always been there to bandage him up and put him back together while Rachel smiled, bright and happy in her youth. She was always the only one able to really make Castiel smile. But this was something out of his hands, something he couldn’t fix no matter how hard he might try. And Rachel isn’t here to help now. It’s just them.

Rachel and Castiel were always closer than any of the cousins, always attached to the hip. For a while, there was a worry – mostly from Lucifer’s side – that she was making Castiel soft. But Michael had allowed their friendship to continue, arguing that if Castiel had something to fight for it would make him even more valuable. Balthazar was a few years older than them, but the three of them stuck together as much as they could. They kept each other safe.

And now Rachel is gone.

“Look, brother, now is your chance. We’ve got a name. We’ve got the history. We just need to find the bugger and—“ But Castiel isn’t listening or, at least, he doesn’t seem to be. He stands, movements jerky and restrained. Castiel doesn’t say anything as he moves to the door, but he doesn’t have to. Balthazar could read him like a book.

“Castiel, no.” Immediately, Balthazar was rushing forward to grab Castiel, but the bastard is fast, agile, always has been. “Castiel, if Michael finds out, he’ll have both our bollocks pickled.”

But the other man is already gone and out the door and Balthazar stands there staring at the empty, white walls and equally empty apartment. Blank, just like Castiel.

Five minutes later he picks up the phone again.

“He’ll do it.”

 

 

A part of Dean wants to just go home and pass out, but another knows that even if he went home, there wouldn’t be any sleep. The shmuck of a doctor the Bureau made him see after the last case prescribed him some bullshit meds for his sleep, but so far the bottle sat unopened in his medicine cabinet.

But some times it overwhelms him. He’s learned now that if he’s idle, even he’s still for too long, it just sneaks up. Before he knows it the bottle of Jack that Sammy bought him last Christmas is empty and he’s wondering if sticking his hand in boiling water will take away some of his guilt, some of his anger, take some of the edge off. He hasn’t actually tried it, hasn’t gotten to that point yet, but it’s in those times when his mind is allowed to wander that the urge is strongest.

So he decides to go seeking a distraction.

He doesn’t realize it’s a Friday night until he sees the crowd jammed in there, all sweaty bodies and the smell of sex lingering in the air. Immediately, he’s loosening his tie and shrugging off his suit jacket as he sits at the bar and orders a beer. A few crappy strobe lights are centered at the dance floor, but it’s too early in the evening for more people to be drunk enough to actually dance. A weird mix of classic rock and disco blares out of the small jukebox in the far corner by the dance floor and all manner of people are scattered around the room. Male, female, plenty of those in between and Dean is content to simply browse. But he decides to tell the nice drag queen no. Not that he doesn’t appreciate her art, it just isn’t his thing.

It’s only when she leaves in a flurry of perfume and glitter that Dean actually sees him.

He’s leaning against the wall near where Dean had entered, wearing a long trench coat with his hands stuffed in the pockets and his head bowed. At first all Dean can see is the head of rumpled brown-black hair as another man leans in close to him, staggering forward with a beer in his hand. Just when Dean is moving to turn away, someone knocks into the glowing neon sign above the guys head and sparks go flying as it breaks.

All around him there’s shouting and people ducking to cover their heads from the bursts of white light. But the guy doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he turns his face up into it, as if mesmerized by the falling sparks, if only for a moment. Then they are gone and Dean can dimly hear people yelling, but it doesn’t matter because he can’t stop staring.

His eyes are blue, impossibly blue, almost glowing as they stare into him like they already know all they needed to. His jaw is strong, covered in faint stubble, hair cut modestly, with deep bags under his eyes. And he is beautiful.

The man who had been drunkenly talking to him tried to continue, but as Dean watches the guy just shakes his head and points at Dean.

 _Be cool, man, be cool_. Dean puts on his most sultry smile and raises his beer in greeting.

He’s surprised when the guy comes marching right over to him, dodging the tables and drunken bodies in his way without taking his eyes off Dean, just marching through them as if they aren’t even there.

Then he’s right there and before Dean can even say _how you doin’?_ , lips are pressing up against his own and a firm body is pressed equally close. It’s instinct that makes him kiss back, his beerless hand dropping to the man’s waist and pulling him in a little closer. It’s over far too soon, but when he pulls away, Dean’s lips tingle.

Dean can see a flush of color staining the guy’s lips as he turns to look for the man who had been talking to him and they both watch as he just waves his hand in a gesture that clearly reads good riddance before he melts into the crowd and then Dean is pinned down by those damn blue eyes again.

“Hey.” Eloquent, Dean. Real eloquent. He winces, but when he glances to the guy still caught in the circle of his arms, there’s mirth dancing in those baby blues. It’s not in his mouth, he doesn’t grin, but Dean can see it there all the same. Maybe he won’t fuck this up completely.

A thousand words dance on his tongue, pick-up lines, conversation openers, but every time he tries none of them seem right. It feels like an eternity has passed before he’s finally able to speak up.

“You want to--?” Dean jerks his head, a vague gesture to the maze of hallways that are supposed to lead to the bathrooms, but it’s easy to get ‘lost’ in there.

The words are barely out of his mouth before the guy plucks the beer from his fingers and downs the rest of it then goes striding off with nothing more than a heated glance and a tug on Dean’s shirt.

He follows like a moth following a flame, weaving his way through the crowd nowhere near as well as this guy, this tall, dark mystery. The press of bodies finally breaks and they move into the darkness of the hallways with nothing but the faint light of the dance floor to lead them. His fingertips are tingling, aching to feel roughened skin under his own, the thought of discovering what lay under all those layers enough to make his cock start twitching.

No names are given because they aren’t needed. Not here, not in this place where everyone can be anyone. The sound of moans of others follow them as the guy turns a sharp corner and Dean follows blindly. Before he can try and puzzle out where they are, hands are fisting into his shirt and pulling him into a dark alcove.

It isn’t all dark though. There’s a half-burned out light winking above them as lips latch onto his own and suddenly he’s pressed against the smooth lines of another body, firm and warm beneath him. The kiss is just as electric as the first, maybe even more now as their tongues prod forward, exploring and learning each other’s mouths in gentle licks. It’s slow, careful, a _getting to know you_ in the dirtiest kind of way.

Soon it becomes deeper, harder, desperate and Dean’s hands start moving from the safe zone, up the sides of the guy’s waist, feeling the ridges of muscles beneath his thin shirt. Up and up until his fingers graze against hardened peaks beneath soft cotton. He’s wondering if he should just rip the buttons open wide, if the man pinned between him and the wall has nipples that are dark and dusky or soft and pink when hands wrap around his wrists and push down, gently, but firmly.

There’s a moment of panic and he starts to take a step back, thinking he’s gone too far, got a bit too excited, assumed too much. Damn it, Dean, should have known. He pulls back, somehow detaches his mouth from that plush one, that one he turned swollen and wet with his ‘exploring,’ leaning his forehead against the flat plane of the other man’s.

“Sorry, I-- _Fuck_.” He lets it out in a long low groan as the guy’s hands keep pushing his down until they reach his crotch and then Dean can feel the hard, thick line of his cock through pleated black pants.

Immediately, he presses his palm against it and feels a hot rush of air against his face as the man gasps. Dean grinds his hand down again and this time he can feel the man’s hips pushing up to meet it. He does it again and again until there’s actual whimpers coming out and he can’t stand it anymore, he has to know what it feels like.

His hands jerk a little harder than necessary as he pulls the belt open and undoes the top button, not even waiting to undo the zipper before he’s shoving his hand down the front of the guy’s pants and grasping his full length. It’s hard and heavy and wet at the tip as he grinds his hand against the soft skin of the man’s cock. When he opens his eyes, Dean is greeted by the sight of this man, this stranger, staring down where Dean’s got his hand wrapped around him. Dean watches the way his skin flushes and his mouth hangs open as the head of his cock disappears and reappears inside of Dean’s fist.

Dean’s free hand goes to the back of the man’s neck, tugging him in close for another kiss, catching that pink tongue as it darts out to meet his own and suck on it. The result is a hard tremble against his body and hands, smaller and longer than his own, clenching at his shirt and pulling him in even closer. Those hands don’t stay idle and soon they’re moving down, down, down to his pants and opening him up with careful, slow movements and some part of his mind registers it as a _tease_ , but the dominant part, the part that’s in control can only think, yes, yes, yes.

A hand grasps his hip and pulls him in closer until the lines of their bodies are connected, until the air they breathe is the same and he can feel the other man’s cock pressing up against his own through the fabric of his briefs. He keeps stroking as fingers, nimble and quick and just a little desperate, push the briefs down and Dean groans into the man’s mouth, catches the answering one in his own before it pulls away from him and he watches as the guy brings his hand up to his mouth and licks a wet trail over the skin. And fuck those fingers are long. Dean can hear himself moaning again, a sound somewhere between a growl and a whimper as his teeth tug on the corner of the guy’s lip and those teasing fingers join his own to wrap around both their cocks until flesh is pressed against flesh.

As natural as breathing, they start to move together, grinding into each other, into their hands with nothing but precome and spit to slick the way. He feels like a teenager again, impossibly turned on as their cocks slide together, hard and needy. Dean can’t remember the last time he was this fucking turned on, when his balls felt so heavy and tight that he thought they were gonna burst, but he doesn’t want this to be over, not yet.

Not when the guy in his arms is moaning like _that_ , when his cheeks are fucking stained red and those impossible blue eyes are looking away from where their cocks grind together to look into him. He gets the feeling those eyes know everything about him, his past, his present, and still they don’t care. They know all the things he’d done and have already forgiven him without needing to be asked.

Someone might have walked by, but Dean couldn’t even begin to care. He is climbing higher and higher, fingers tightening and hips moving faster, murmuring against open gasping lips, “Come on, baby. Come on,” because there’s no way he’s gonna come first, not when he’s got something this good.

It’s like he was waiting for the words, just waiting until Dean demanded it of him and then he’s coming. Dean feels it in the guy’s body before it happens, feels the way the muscles underneath his trench coat jump and twitch, the way his body tenses up before he arches forward, pushing his cock up against Dean’s. It throbs in his hand, then starts pulsing and Dean can feel the hot wetness of him spurting up into his fist and then leaking over his cock.

And that’s all it takes for him to come, for him to follow the guy over the edge and into that red-hot abyss of _awesome_. He comes so hard his whole body jerks and his vision whites out and his knees shake and, Jesus, he hasn’t come this hard since he was sixteen years old and getting a blowjob in the passenger seat of his friend’s mom’s car by said friend’s mom.

When he finally opens his eyes, they’re both breathing heavy, inhaling and exhaling as one. Green is drawn to blue like magnets and for one brief moment Dean can see it there, a brief flash before it’s gone - vulnerability. He almost thinks he dreamed it up because it’s gone and in its place is a brick wall of nothing, that old mirth gone. In its place is just cold hard nothing and weirdly, Dean feels a pang in his gut.

They pull away from each other, just a bit, just enough to take a look at the damage. Dean winces as his cock gives an angry twitch when the comparatively cool air hits it and that only makes it ooze out a dribble of come that practically _hurts_ it’s so fucking sensitive. The front of his pants are ruined, covered in a mess of come and he’s not sure whose is whose, but he is sure that the dry cleaning bill for this is gonna be expensive.

“We should probably--” But the guy is one step ahead of him and stealthy too because Dean hadn’t even seen him pluck the handkerchief from his pocket that he’s using to wipe up the bulk of their mess. He cleans Dean first, long, gentle wipes of the cloth making his cock twitch, even as used up as it is.

“Thanks,” Dean murmurs, eyes cast down where their cocks are softening, pressed tight up against their hips. The guy still doesn’t say anything and Dean can’t help looking up.

His eyes trace the curves of the man’s face, the sharp rise of his cheekbones, the soft bags under his eyes that should be unattractive, but instead only make Dean sad, make him think that this man never sleeps and it’s made a permanent mark on his life. His eyelashes are long and from here Dean can see all the little freckles on his skin, freckles so small that you could only notice them from here. The hair is even more untidy than before and Dean smiles thinking that he’s the reason for that. He finds himself wondering what it might be like to press his lips to the shell of the guy’s ear, if the guy is sensitive enough that it would—

When his eyes search out those blue ones again, he finds them already staring at him, trailing over his face like a touch even though the man’s hands are loosely curled at his hips, one gripping the soiled handkerchief.

“Sorry.” Dean mumbles and he can feel his face burn a little, which is weird because Dean Winchester does not blush. Yet, here he is.

The guy just shakes his head and a little of that wonder is back in his eyes, that awe Dean had seen when neon light went raining down around him.

People pass by and the sound of their whistles and giggles is enough to snap them both out of it.

They part just enough to buckle their pants, but still close enough that he can feel hot, little breaths against his neck. Dean bends to pick up his jacket from where it had fallen, though he didn’t remember even dropping it. They’re straightening up their clothes and Dean slips his suit coat back on, even if he’s way too hot to wear it right now. He smiles at the man, a little questioning quirk of his mouth and he knows he should leave, but he really doesn’t want to.

So instead, he leans in. He leans in and he can feel the man before him stiffen, but he keeps going anyway, pressing his hand to the man’s cheek and a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He leaves.

But not before slipping the card with his cell phone number and name into the man’s trench coat pocket.

 

 

Dean is just getting out of the Impala when his phone vibrates in his pocket. It jolts him out of his daze and he’s silently cursing Sam for butting into his happy, post-best-orgasm-ever haze. And all they did was rut up against each other.

When he looks at the screen he frowns, a message from a number he doesn’t recognize flashing on his phone.

My name is Castiel.

  
Dean smiles. What a weird name. Weird and eerie and somehow pretty when Dean tries the syllables on his tongue. 


	2. Act II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's broken and he's 95% sure he's always been broken. He's a Fed because he used to believe it would do some good and now? He's not so sure. Castiel knows he's broken and he can't be fixed. He does as he's told, kills who his uncle tells him to kill, and pretends that the nightmares don't wake him up anymore. But they find some solace, some peace in each other, until the day it all comes crashing down.

The dream is the same and he will never save her.

He’s crawling through the ashes of his home, this place that he had felt safe and happy and he thinks he won’t ever feel that way again. The heat is on his skin again and he can feel it bubbling, but the pain seems like it’s far away, like he is only catching the echo of it.

But he can still hear her scream.

He gets the door open this time, he can manage at least that. He already knows what he’ll see on the other side.

She’s there and he never knows if it’s the color of her hair or that fact much of her body is consumed by flames that makes her stand out so clearly in his mind. Her skin - skin that he remembers to be so soft and pretty - is melting away while she screams and writhes on the floor.

A dark figure towers over them both, untouched by the flames. It seems to be created from the shadows itself and the longer that Castiel looks at it, the bigger it gets. It’s form is made from nothing and Castiel knows that if his gaze lingers for too long he’ll be pulled into that void with no way of getting out.

He struggles when the thing picks him up from the ground as if he weighed nothing and taking him away. The void that is this thing starts to swallow him and he tries to fight, tries to reach out for her hands as she calls for him, as she turns to ash.

But it’s just a dream.

 

 

They meet in darkness and daylight. They meet when they can and where they can. Crappy motels, club bathrooms, the backseat of the Impala. They cling to each other, their hands balled into fists in each other’s clothes, clothes they never seem to have enough time removing, at least not all the way. They come together in desperation for each other, for something to take the edge off, for someone they can clutch at without guilt.

Some times, in the lull that comes after, when their breathing has evened out again and there’s still time before they have to part, one of them opens his mouth and speaks. He tells the other of the times when he was so sure of everything. When there was order and his life was full of purpose. He speaks of tragedy too, of carrying a small bundle out of a burning building, of watching the only home he would ever know burn to the ground with his mother inside. He speaks of fights with his father, his mentor, his idol. He speaks of a woman he once loved, a woman who was strong and forward and whose only fear was staying with the same person for too long. He doesn’t go into much detail because there’s a part of him that still fears losing this, this feeling of safety, of comfort.

As for the other man, he is content to listen. He listens to the man’s deepest fears, regrets, all of it. He listens like a priest at the confessional. He keeps each story close, holds on to each of them like a physical thing he can tuck away next to his heart. They are his, these moments when the man opens up to him and spills everything. They are his and he won’t let anyone take them away, not this time.

And for the first time, he wishes he had the strength and the courage for words.

 

 

“Castiel, what the hell is this?”

Castiel barely looks up from the papers laid out on his coffee table, a series of maps from various states with red circles littering it as well as whatever information they could pull from their contact on the inside.

“ _It appears to be a business card._ ”

Balthazar can feel the headache coming on already.

“I know bloody well what the hell it _is_ —Don’t get smart, you know why I’m asking.” Balthazar tosses it down on the table, hoping it will officially distract Castiel. It works and he watches as the man picks the card up to study it. “Who the hell is Dean _Winchester_ ,” The name rolls off his tongue like vomit, “And why is his Federal Bureau of Investigations contact information card in your pocket?”

Balthazar doesn’t realize he was shouting until he registers the look on Castiel’s face, a look stuck somewhere between terror and hurt.

Damn. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.

“I’m sorry.” He drags a hand over his face and flops down on to the couch, beside Castiel, “I’m sorry, I just—“

“ _Why were you digging in my pockets?_ ”

Balthazar hesitates for a moment before responding. “I wanted to know where you’ve been sneaking off to at all hours of the day.”

 

 

“What do you mean sneaking off?”

Dean is dodging the question and Sam knows it.

“I mean telling me you’re at home, but when I call to see if you want to do something, no one’s home. I mean saying you’re working late, or you’re out with Victor, but when I call, you’re not doing that either. Ergo, you are hiding something. This is the first time I’ve managed to catch you for Sunday dinner in two months!”

Not that Sam is a stalker or anything. He just likes to keep tabs on Dean, to know that he’s okay. It was bad enough knowing that dad was wasting away and not being able to do anything about it, Sam’s not just gonna sit by this time. Not when he can do something about it.

“What, so a man can’t have some privacy?” Sam can tell Dean’s trying to look put off, but it doesn’t really come through when he - completely unnecessarily - flips a burger in the air and pats himself on the back when it lands back on the barbecue perfectly.

“Dude. You’re freaking me out.”

“Tell you what: Rock, Paper, Scissors. You win, I’ll tell you. I win, you shut the hell up and eat this burger I’m slaving over for you.”

Sam tries not to laugh.

“Deal.”

 

 

“So have you two…”

“ _Fucked?_ ” Castiel has pushed the card back into the pocket of his sweatpants and he’s back to not looking at Balthazar as he moves between the Fed’s reports and his maps.

“Castiel! Did you just say ‘fuck?’” Inwardly, Balthazar is proud.

“ _Technically, I signed ‘fuck,’ but yes. And yes._ ”

“What do you mean, ‘yes and yes?’ You—Oh.”

“ _Yes_.”

 

 

“Was it good?”

“Sam!”

“What?!” Sam has to admit, it was worth it to almost watch Dean choke on his burger. “I’ve never seen you hoard information about someone you’re with, not in a long time.” Sam doesn’t need to mention exactly how long; he can see the muscle tick in Dean’s jaw. “Usually you’re the first to drag them to our family gatherings so you can show them off.”

Okay, so maybe Sam is a little bit hurt that Dean has been seeing someone for two months and has been hiding it for so long when usually he’s pestering Sam for opinions a week later, some times less.

“Yeah, well maybe I wanna keep this one to myself for a while.” There it is again, that secret grin curling up the edges of Dean’s mouth and making Sam weirdly suspicious and happy at the same time.

They’re quiet for a moment, eating and occasionally tossing bits of lettuce and bread to Sam’s golden lab, Bones. Every so often, Dean checks his phone, glancing at it as if it’s a bomb that will explode any second except, instead of carnage there will be apple pie and rainbows.

“Is it a guy or a girl?”

“Son of a bitch.”

 

 

“Do you love him?”

Castiel gives him a look that could curdle milk.

“What?! I have to ask these things! I have to know these things.” Because it’s been what? Two months? Maybe more? And Balthazar was only finding out _now_.

“ _Do you?_ ” He’s sharpening his knives now, hard jerking movements that tell Balthazar he isn’t happy with where this line of questioning has gone.

“Yes!” Balthazar hesitates before speaking again, but he knows it’s the only way he can make Castiel see. “Castiel, you remember what happened to Inias, I know you do.”

Castiel’s hands freeze then tighten around the hilt of the blade in his hand. There’s tension in his face, a clicking in his jaw and then it’s gone, a blank mask falling into place.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Balthazar knows he shouldn’t mention it, shouldn’t continue, but…

“I know you don’t want that again. I know I don’t. And we both know that Michael doesn’t. But you have to know that it will happen again if you aren’t careful. And Lucifer might not be so forgiving this time.”

Castiel doesn’t say anything as his hands begin moving again, dragging the whetstone over his blade in long strokes again. His head jerks in a nod.

 

 

“He doesn’t speak?”

“Nope.”

“Not at all?”

“Not at all.”

Sam sits back with a huff of disbelief, hand idly scratching Bones’s ears.

“Wow.”

“Yep.” Dean is in his post-food Zen moment, hand rubbing over his belly and a beer dangling between his fingers.

“Does he sign?”

Dean frowns, “I don’t know actually. Maybe? We never really get around to it.” Dean winks then, his lip curling up in a saucy smirk.

“Ew.”

Sam laughs because it really is funny. He can’t remember the last time Dean was this relaxed, this content. Well, scratch that, he can remember, he just chooses not to. Sam’s mouth opens to ask if it’s like the last time he got serious before fate or God or whoever it was tugging on their strings decided to snatch it away. Maybe it’s the little smile Dean wears as he scratches Bones behind the ear or maybe it’s that Dean has filled him up with good food, but for whatever reason, Sam closes his mouth and feels a little wiser for it.

“Do you like… Like him?”

“Dude, _seriously_?”

 

“I know you know this already Castiel, but… Just be careful, yeah?”

Castiel gives another jerk of his head as he slides his arms into the sleeves of his coat. Balthazar is at the door of the apartment, waiting.

“Yeah.” He says the words almost to himself, wishing that things were different, that they were different people who could have things like love without paying a price.

When he looks up, Castiel is ready, hands hanging loosely by his side, body full of quiet tension, staring straight past Balthazar.

“Come on then. Michael is waiting.”

 

 

The pictures on his desk are few, but they are each important.

The first photograph shows a woman and a young girl. It sits almost directly in his line of sight so that no matter who sits before him, that picture is always within view. The woman has wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, but she smiles and stares into the camera as if there’s a youth in her that will never go away. Her arms are wrapped around the shoulders of the young girl, perhaps five or six years old. Her mouth doesn’t smile the the same way her mother’s does, it is much more subdued. Michael knows she gets this from him. Her lips are pressed together in a flat line and to the untrained eye she seems to be frustrated or annoyed. But Michael knows his daughter and he knows his wife and he can see that Rachel is trying to hold back the laugh her mother gave out so freely. Michael knows this to be true because he is the one who took the picture on a bright, sunny day in Central Park at least ten years ago.

Some times, when Michael is dreaming, he can still hear their laughter and feel the warmth of the sunlight on his skin. Some times, he watches that sunlight reflect in their blonde hair and watches it form halos around their heads. Some times, in the moments following his dreams, he can almost believe that they really made it to Heaven and they found their place at God’s side, together.

But only some times.

The second picture is another woman, just as important as the first two, but in vastly different ways. The picture is smaller, but it sits close to the first. Her face is turned away from the camera and a wide smile of embarrassment graces her face. Red hair tumbles down to her shoulders in soft waves, red hair that always marked her as an outcast to their family. If Michael thinks hard enough he can remember the fight that left his pregnant mother with a black eye and a split lip after a vacation to Ireland. He remembers Zachariah’s hands reaching down to cover his ears, blocking out words that he wouldn’t understand until much later in life.

Michael remembers watching their mother cut Anna’s hair, remembers the _snip, snip_ of the scissors as their mother attempted to get it all one length again. He remembers asking Lucifer why, why did he have to cut Anna’s hair, why was he so cruel? And Lucifer had only replied that Father had told him Anna was nothing, she was a child of Sodom, of sin. Some times, Michael can still feel an echo of throbbing pain in his knuckles, can still feel the way Lucifer’s skin had given way to his fist.

The third picture is of three children. It sits opposite the other framed photos, but it is always within reach should sentimentality take over. An older, taller boy with dirty blonde hair, pale blue eyes and a crooked smirk. Next to him stands a girl, older than she was when the picture with her mother was taken, but there's a sadness that shines in her eyes, the sadness that follows the loss of someone important. Her face is still stern, but Michael can still see the joy she had at that moment. One of Rachel's arms is thrown over Balthazar's shoulder (though she had to stand up on the tips of her toes to do so) and another is thrown over that of a hollow-eyed boy with a thick mass of dark hair, a furrowed brow, and bright blue eyes. He stands with his arms held stiffly and firmly at his sides as if he is facing a drill sergeant.

From day Balthazar arrived he became the glue that held the three of them together. Before Balthazar, Castiel and Rachel were completely dependant on each other. They became almost twins, both of them stern-faced and anti-social. Prying Rachel away from Castiel long enough for him to train became so much of a chore that they simply ended up letting her stay with him. But Balthazar, he had something about him. He came to them a distant cousin, the son of two people who only ended up dead and in the hands of his American family. Castiel and Rachel had never known him, he was standoffish and cruel at first and, yet, Balthazar became their connection. He made it possible for them to open their world, for Rachel to leave Castiel’s side long enough so he could train, for Castiel to finally learn to sign in something people other than Rachel could understand. It made him the perfect choice for Castiel’s handler.

Castiel was sixteen when he accomplished his first hit and Balthazar had been right there with him. Balthazar had been the first one to greet him when he came home and Balthazar had been the one to pull a handkerchief from his pocket and wipe away the splash of blood on Castiel’s cheek.

(There is another photograph that Michael keeps locked in the top drawer of his desk. The key to this drawer is never far from his person since many of the items inside it could lead to his incarceration and that of many others. The photograph inside this drawer shows a red haired woman, Anna, his sister. Cradled in her lap is a small child, not more than four years old with thick, dark curls and bright blue eyes. But there’s no furrowed brow or stiff posture - there is only a child, sitting in his mother’s lap. Her arm is crossed over his chest holding him close while each of them raises a hand that becomes only a blur as they wave to the camera. Michael keeps this photograph locked away, but on the rare nights when he has had too much to drink and the guilt starts to feel like an anvil on his chest, he takes the photo out and tells him that this is what he took away. He stole a child’s smile.)

The pictures on his desk are few, but they are each important.  


[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=ztwso1)

 

Lucifer tries to tell him that it is no concern of theirs, that it would be foolish to allow _Feds_ inside their home, allow them so close to their _business_. But Michael is beyond caring. Let the police do what they want, let them take what they want. What does it matter anymore? His wife is gone. His child is gone. How much more of him is left to take?

So he lets the agents in, asks Zachariah to show them to his office and see if perhaps he could bring some coffee and make sure Michael’s is Irish. Zachariah’s face twists with displeasure, but Michael doesn’t care; he knows that Zachariah will do as he is told. When Michael arrives, Lucifer at his back like the shadow he is, the agents are sitting in the chairs before his desk, coffee cups in hand.

“Afternoon.” Michael tries to make his voice swell with authority, with the strength he has cultivated over the years, but lately it seems as if something has been caught in his throat. He sits behind his desk, eyes glancing over three pictures in dark wooden frames as if to confirm they are in their place before turning his attention to the men before him.

“Brother, this is Agent Henriksen and Agent Winchester.” Lucifer gestures to each of them in turn although he looks like he would rather be giving them the finger or clubbing them over the head.

“What can I do for you today?”

The man on the left - dark skin, bald head and stern eyes - speaks first. “We have a few questions regarding your daughter’s murder.” Beside him, Michael can feel Lucifer rolling his eyes. Agent Henriksen’s body is stiff in the chair and he hasn’t had a sip of the coffee Zachariah bothered to make him. Michael can see why the man might not want to be here, might prefer to slap cuffs on him and drag him off to prison and throw away the key. He understands why, of course; the men and women who become police always have a very black and white view of justice.

“Some of your colleagues already stopped by to ask, I’m not certain what more I can tell you.” Michael is tired. He wants to take off this suit, he wants to stop feeling like there’s a noose around his neck, he wants them to leave, he wants them all gone--

“We just have a few follow-up questions, it won’t take long. First, do you have any idea who could have done this? Any enemies that--”

“Might have a grudge? Did you do any research at all into this family before you decided to intrude or did you just decide to come in here with your pants around your ankles?” Lucifer all but spat the words out, somehow managing to look unimpressed and disgusted at the same time.

“Lucifer, please.”

“Michael, they have no business here, not when we are in a time of goddamn mourning--”

“Sir, if I may?” The man that speaks up doesn’t raise his voice, but his tone is that of one who will not be ignored.

Michael does his best to pay attention, tries to brush off the frustration and turns his gaze to the man sitting at his right. Caucasian, an American thoroughbred, handsome, green eyes and blonde hair. But where his partner is all formalities and barely contained disgust, this man leans forward to engage Michael and the cup cradled between his hands is nearly empty.

“I understand that this is difficult, especially so soon.” Michael wants to snap that no one could understand his loss, the loss of a wife, a daughter. But when he looks in the man’s eyes, Michael sees that same loss that reflects back at him in mirrors. The man continues, “Whoever did this to your daughter, they’re not going to stop. There have been at least five others aside from Rachel-” Her name, he used her _name_. “and we just want to stop him before someone else becomes a victim. We need your help.”

The agent doesn’t say anything more and his partner is staring at him like there’s a stranger before them. But Michael only looks at the agent and the agent only looks at him, searching for the lies in his eyes.

“Get out.”

Now the agent looks away from him, worry creasing his brow as they both move to stand.

“No. You stay. You may leave.” Again, the agents are looking to each other for confirmation and, slowly, the agent - Winchester, was it? - sits back down while his partner straightens his suit and, displeasure curling his lip, makes his exit.

Lucifer still stands at Michael’s side, full of righteous anger barely masked by a pitying expression.

“Lucifer. Go find my nephews, please.”

Lucifer’s mouth opens, but Michael simply looks up to meet his brother’s eyes and shakes his head. No arguments. Not today. He watches his brother’s lips purse together again before he takes a breath and much of the tension floods out of him.

“I only live to serve.” A month ago Michael might have felt the sting of sarcasm in that remark, might have called his brother back to stay, might have proved to his little brother that they were equals in this. But not anymore.

“What is it that you intend to do, Agent Winchester?” Michael’s voice is quiet, even to himself. “Will you bring this man to justice? Will he be represented by a famous lawyer who will fight for his right to live? Will he be judged by a jury of his peers? Will he sit for months, perhaps years, in a jail where the inmates will fear him just as he wants? Will he be given a calm, gentle death by lethal injection? A death so unlike the one he gave my daughter.”

Or will he be punished, Agent Winchester? Will he be punished like a man such as him deserves? Will vengeance for my daughter and the other lives he’s taken be swift and unforgiving? Can you promise me that he will suffer just as he made my daughter suffer?”

Michael watches the muscle in Agent Winchester’s jaw jump and twitch until the man is no longer able or willing to hold his gaze. He watched the man’s eyes dart around, as if searching the room for an answer, as if the words would be written out on the back of his hands, the words that Michael wants to hear.

He opens his mouth, about to force this man out as well, wondering which of the scotch he would use to drown in tonight when Agent Winchester finally speaks.

“I can’t promise you any of that, sir. Not legally, anyway. It's actually part of our policy, we're not allowed to make any kind of promises to the family of victims. I learned my lesson on that not too long ago, actually.” A laugh, bitter and rough. “But, with respect, revenge won’t help. Trust me. Revenge might actually make it worse and, next thing you know, you’re turning into just another ghost.” Agent Winchester shrugs as if he doesn’t know how else to explain it, but Michael understands. “I can’t guarantee that justice’ll help either. And you’re right. It could take years before he ever sees a courtroom. But I can guarantee this - I won’t stop. I won’t stop ‘till we get him.”

The silence drags on and on, but Michael keeps his eyes on Agent Winchester. The man does not fidget under Michael’s gaze, as many are prone to do, but sits still and calm, waiting for judgment. Somehow, Michael believes that whether or not he gives this man any information, Agent Winchester really won’t stop. He’ll keep searching for the killer, perhaps he’ll still be looking when he is an old man who has wasted his life at a job he doesn’t particularly like or agree with.

“Thank you for your honesty, Agent Winchester.” Michael is truly thankful. He has had enough of Lucifer’s promises, vows that they will get revenge if he only waits a little longer. Will revenge bring Rachel back? Will it bring her back to him whole and happy again? The answer is no.

Michael reaches for a pen and pad of paper. He writes down a name and city before putting the pen back in it’s place carefully and handing the paper to Agent Winchester.

“Good luck, agent.”

 

 

The agents aren’t gone more than one minute when Lucifer enters, Balthazar and Castiel following close behind. Balthazar sits, stretching languidly in his chair. Castiel stands stiffly as ever beside him, eyes cast downward, lips pressed into a tight, thin line. There was once a time when Michael could have glanced at them and known in an instant if they were hiding something. Now, he can’t be bothered to care.

Lucifer comes to stand at his left, facing the boys (for they will always be just boys in Michael's mind) holding up against the bookshelf.

“You two monkeys heard what that agent said, didn’t you? Every word?” Lucifer drawls and, yet, somehow it sounds like a threat.

The boys just nod.

Lucifer starts forward and Michael knows that he’s heading for Castiel. Castiel seems to know it too, in the way that he starts to slump even more, as if curling up to block a coming blow. Balthazar is pointedly staring at the floor when Lucifer’s hand starts to rise.

“Good.” Lucifer halts, but Michael ignores him. For now. “I gave that agent the same information that we gave you, Castiel. He’ll be on the same trail.”

“Michael! Why the hell would you do that!? That Fed could—”

“I know very well what that Fed could do with that information, brother. I just don’t care.” Michael doesn’t have to look up to know his brother is turning red in the face. “Besides, he wants to catch this monster as badly as we do.”

There is a moment of stunned silence as Lucifer and Balthazar gape in open shock at him, but Michael’s eyes are on Castiel. Castiel who has not once looked up at him, Castiel who has simply stood, waiting for orders.

“You are not to interfere with this Fed’s business, do you understand?” Castiel nods. “If, by some miracle, he gets to the killer first, you are to leave him alone and let him conduct his business.” Another jerky nod. Lucifer is bristling at his side, but Michael continues to ignore him. “That’s all.”

Balthazar rises to leave and Castiel does an about-face.

“Castiel, one more thing.”

Castiel does not turn to face him again, he simply waits.

“Make Alastair suffer.”

 

 

“And he just gave this information to you?”

Dean stares down at the piece of paper in his hand, the same piece of paper that had been crumpled up in his pocket since they’d left the Giordano Mansion.  


Alastair

Cedar Knolls

  
“Uh... Yeah? I mean, I guess he did.”

Why would someone like Michael Giordano go out of his way to help a Fed like him? Sure, maybe what he said had something to do with, maybe it was the loss of a child or maybe the wind just blew in the right direction. Whatever it was, Dean couldn't afford to wonder over it anymore.

"So Becky confirmed it? There was an Alastair at the Palo Alto prison?" Focus, Dean. Focus.

"Yeah, and we confirmed that he did break out just a few days before Moore's body was found."

Dean forces himself to tuck the note back into his pocket, squeezing his eye together tight as if that could clear the cobwebs. He finds himself staring at his cell phone laying dark and dormant on his desk, almost lost in the clutter. Before Castiel, he would lose his phone all the time. Now he’s lucky if he goes five minutes without checking for a message. And normally this would make him feel like he’s being too clingy, except Castiel does the same too because every five minutes (some times less) there’s a message from Castiel.

Dean’s phone has not pinged or vibrated in hours.

"-essed up family. What kind of weirdo names their kid _Lucifer_? Dean? Dean!"

"Yeah? Yeah. I'm here."

Vic is staring at him like he's grown two heads and Dean can see the questions formulating on his lips, but instead Henriksen just shakes his head.

"Whoever it is that's been making your phone go crazy for the past couple of weeks can wait, okay? We've got a job to do here."

"I know that." Dean does his best to not sound worried, to brush it off. Castiel would be fine. He was probably just working. Hadn't he mentioned in one of his previous texts that work would be busy soon? That he'd be going out of town? Dean told himself that his - partner? Fuckbuddy? Beau? - was probably just busy.

"So what do we know about this Cedar Knolls place?" Focus.

"It's your usual small, quaint town. Used to be a factory place 'till they moved them over to China. It's more than a few hours drive from here."

"All right well, let's get that mugshot out to all the press, let 'em know we've got a face to stick to Rachel's murder, but no names."

"Yeah, don't want them trying to make this guy any more famous than he already is."

Vic picks up his phone and calls Chuck, who lets him know that it'll be no problem getting the image to the press, but he can't guarantee that they'll keep the perp's identity secret for long. But if they can keep the press from doing all their crack profiling on the murderer they might actually get some work done and get this case solved without any copycat attempts.

Hours later they have the approvals that they need for travel, and connected with the locals in Cedar Knolls to let them know they would be investigating a serial killer in the area (even though, "This is the first we've heard of such a thing, the Knolls is a quiet place, but if you want to come poke your nose around, be my guest."), and even managed to book a couple hotel rooms (because despite how cool Vic was with Dean batting for both teams, he always asked for separate rooms). They set out in a Bureau issued economic car that Dean hates and Vic claims his wife would loved with enough tunes and snacks to last them the whole five hour drive.

Castiel still had not sent him a single text.

 

 

The silence drags on and on.

Castiel has not spoken - _signed_ , whatever - since they arrived at Michael’s. That is not entirely unusual for him really since Castiel always seems to bottle up even more every time they go there (Balthazar is supposed to be his translator, since he and Rachel had been the only ones who bothered to learn signing with him, but he is rarely needed). But after they overheard Michael and that prat Fed, Castiel just seemed to shut down. Balthazar had been worried, of course, but he’d learned a long time ago that part of his job was to protect Castiel.

So, when he probably should have been telling Michael exactly how much of a risk it was to send that agent after Alastair or just how compromised Castiel had become by this job, Balthazar just sat there.

He still can’t decide if it was a good decision.

Castiel’s hands are moving.

“That’s it? You just want to go?”

“ _Yes_.” Castiel stands, picking up his bag and moving to the door. Balthazar doesn’t get up.

“Castiel, wait!” The man pauses. “You Fed could get hurt. If he’s not as dumb as he looks he could get really hurt.”

The bag falls to the floor as Castiel’s hands wave through the air. “ _That’s why I have to be there, Bal. Can’t let Alastair hurt him. Can’t let him walk in there on his own, can’t lose--_ ”

Balthazar is already standing, already before Castiel and grabbing his hands. They shake in his grip.

“Hey. Hey.” He tries to sound reasonable, even if he feels the exact opposite. “It’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. I’m sure he’s not that dumb, yeah?”

When was the last time Castiel was like this?

Long enough ago that Balthazar could feel something dark and feverish curling in his gut.

Balthazar curls his hand around the back of Castiel’s neck and pulls him in until the man’s forehead rests against his own. His thumb rubs small, firm circles in the spot just at the base of Castiel’s skull.

“Come on,” The words flow off his tongue as if it hasn’t been years since he last had a need to say them. “Breathe.”

They breathe slow, in and out, together and Balthazar remembers a time when there were three who breathed together. When one child woke in the middle of the night screaming and Uncle Lucifer hollered that if they couldn’t shut up he’d make them sleep on the porch and see how they lasted in the snow. So two children took to sleeping in the other child’s bed and when he woke they would press their foreheads together and rub soothing circles on his back until the whimpers stopped and he fell back asleep.

Castiel has gotten better since then and it doesn’t take long for the man to calm down again. Balthazar dons a smirk, one that he has been practicing for years.

“There, see? All better.” Castiel still looks shaken, but he manages to nod. Balthazar bends to pick up Castiel’s duffel bag and slings it over his shoulder. “Well, let’s go rescue your damsel in distress.” He moves to walk around Castiel, but a hand on his elbow stops him.

“ _Do you think--_ ” Castiel frowns and Balthazar can see the hesitation there, “ _Do you think he really meant it? That he wouldn’t stop?_ ”

Balthazar considers lying, but the way Castiel is looking at him, he already knows it wouldn’t be possible to lie to those eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think he meant it.”

 

 

Cedar Knolls certainly isn’t going to be making the list for top vacation destinations any time soon, but somehow, Dean still likes it. He imagines this is what their hometown looked like before John ran away with them. The town of Cedar Knolls has more than one main drag with a Wal-Mart and other franchises that Dean can easily recognize, but mixed in with all that are a few mom and pop stores selling antiques or furniture or shoes. They only had to stop for directions once and, while the locals were clearly surprised to see a couple of ‘city boys’ in their town, they didn’t ask any prying questions and simply pointed them in the right direction.

Despite what many taxpayers might have thought, the F.B.I. didn’t have hoards of money laying around so their hotel rooms are meager. The hotel only had queens and wallpaper looks like something someone's grandma threw up, but that doesn’t make much difference to Dean. He’s seen worse and at least this one has hot water that worked. It isn’t home, but it’s enough.

In the end, Dean was only furious with himself for not having figured it out sooner. Even more than that, he was pissed that it had taken this friggin’ long for the case to get in his hands. If he hadn’t been suspended maybe he would have been able to do something sooner. But there was hardly any time to worry about that now, he couldn’t afford to.

But now he had something. Each of the murders – every single damn one of them – matched up with highway 80 stretching from California all the way through Iowa and then shifting over into New York. How the hell could it have taken them so damn long to see it? The guy had taken a friggin’ road trip and made some pit stops along the way. _Fuck_. It was enough to make him feel like a rookie all over again.

Now they have a job, they have something to _do_ , and damned if Dean doesn’t feel relieved to be back in the saddle. It may have taken them way too fucking long, but at least they’re here now and they can finally do _something_.

Five hours in a car and still no word from Castiel. As Dean showers, he tries to clear his mind, says the names of the victims in his mind backwards and forwards, quizzes himself on the case, but still he finds his mind wandering back to Castiel.

Maybe it’s the mystery that draws Dean in. All the time they’ve spent together, the hours stolen in between lunch breaks and 3AM booty calls, Castiel has not spoken one word. He makes other noises, of course - and Dean feels a sense of pride knowing that he can make a mute guy moan - but he never speaks. Dean will be the first to admit that it was hard to get used to, that some times he would find himself asking a question and looking to Castiel for answer, but instead finding a little smirk of a smile (a smile that he’s already claimed as his own) as his answer. Castiel’s shoulders would lift and fall in a shrug and Dean was quickly finding that gesture to be his favorite.

He takes comfort in their silences (yes, theirs), but some time he finds himself speaking even when it’s not invited. It’s usually in the moments after, when their breathing has slowed down and they’re laying side by side. They’re both a mess, both still partially clothed, both perfectly sated. He finds himself whispering dreams to Castiel, how he wanted to be a firefighter when he was young, how some times he pretends that he knows a thing or two about cars and thinks about opening up a garage. How he wonders if he can ever get away from all the horror that comes with his job to find something happy and satisfying. He whispers these things to Castiel like a prayer and, though the man never answers, he knows that Castiel is listening.

 

 

The next morning, Dean heads out to do reconnaissance in the warehouse district while Vic heads over to the local police office to start organizing a search party. Well, it won’t be a search party in every sense of the word - more like a bunch of the local officers going around asking their friendly neighbours if they’ve seen this man and if they do would the please give this number a call, thank you kindly. Technically, policy requires that Vic and Dean stick together on cases like this, but they usually manage to glaze over this in their reports. Besides, Vic has a natural authority that just demands people obey him whereas Dean is more the type to ask politely.

Which is why he is the one who’s stuck rolling around empty streets staring at rundown buildings covered in graffiti with the occasional squatter glaring out of him from the windows, looking for anything ‘suspicious.’

So far, no dice.

He’s been driving for an hour, one hand on the wheel and the other fingering his cell phone when it vibrates.

Dean’s heart feels like it got stuck in his throat and the wheel jerks to the left as he hurries to look at the screen.  


  
VIC:

3350 Lepine

  
Not Castiel then.

Really, Dean should learn to use the GPS, but he doesn’t much like being told where to go. So he drives around until he finds the right street and has to pull a U-turn to find the right address. He might not be able to text and drive, but Dean does know not to pull right up outside the warehouse and knock on the front door. He circles the place once more before parking a block away. As he walks up the sidewalk he pulls on his brown leather jacket so he looks less like a Fed and more like an average Joe, hands tucked ever so casually in his pockets.

He less than a few feet away when the ringing metallic sound of gunfire reaches his ears.

His .45 Glock is already in his hand as he presses the speed dial on his cell phone.

“Shots fired. Get the nerf herders down here.” Vic won’t need much more information than that.

When he gets to the main entrance doors, they are just slightly ajar. He can just barely hear the scuffle of feet over the metal riggings above as he slips inside, as quiet as he can be in a pair of dress shoes. Dean hugs the corners, keeps his gun close and ready to fire, just as he was trained.

Of course, his training never told him what to do when you see the man you’ve been sleeping with for the past few weeks standing in the middle of the room with a wicked looking dagger in one fist and a gun in the other.

“Cas--” The rest of the words halt quickly when more shots ring out from somewhere up on the walkways above. Dean immediately hits the deck and when the bullets finally stop he pokes his head around the rusting machinery, eyes desperately searching, but Cas isn’t there, he’s not even down like he got hit. Where did he go? What was he doing here?

A hand grabs at his shoulder and Dean whips around, gun ready only to find it pointing directly in Castiel’s face.

“Castiel! What the hell is going on? What--” Those words are cut off too as more shots ring out; seems like whoever it is that’s firing brought a few extra clips with him. Dean can’t tell where the shots are coming from, can’t see who the hell it is, but he fires blindly anyway. When he turns around, Castiel is still there leaning against him weakly.

“Cas! What are you _doing_ here? How-- Are you hit?”

Dean kicks himself for not noticing immediately, berates himself for letting the panic almost take him over. There’s blood staining Castiel’s trenchcoat and when Dean pulls it aside he can see more leaking out. Instinct kicks in and, as more bullets richochet off their cover, Dean yanks Castiel forward. Good. The bullet went straight through the shoulder, probably didn’t hit anything major, but it’ll hurt like a--

“‘Dance with me, I want my _arm_ ,’” The man’s voice was almost a nasal whine, something strange and almost intelligible except Dean realized that he was shivering. A hail of bullets rains down on them, “‘About you, that charm about _you_ ,’” Even more bullets and Dean realizes the firearm had to be at least a sub-machine gun to fire that rapidly, “‘Will carry me through to _Heaven_.’” Bullets and more bullets. This time, Castiel reaches out a hand and grabs Dean’s left pant leg, pulling hard and yanking it out of the way just before four or five bullets bounce off the cement floor. “Come on, boys. Don’t you know the _words_?”

“ _Out. Out._ ” Cas’s hands moved weakly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m workin' on it.” Dean’s hands are on autopilot, yanking his tie off and looping it around Castiel’s shoulder as best as possible. He doesn’t even know if this is right, he just knew he needs to slow down the bleeding so he can get Cas up and out of here just like he said--

“Wait. Did you just _sign_?”

Castiel looks up at him with eyes that are still the sharp blue Dean knows, surprised, but still the same. “ _Understand?_ ”

“Of course, I understand! Didn’t I--”

“‘The cares that hung around me seem to vanish,’” The voice bellows out and his song echoes through the whole building. Dimly, Dean can hear sirens blaring from afar. “Uh oh, boys. Looks like we’ll have to cut this dance short.”

Dean can hear the rattle of metal as the man runs along the overhead walkways and when he leans out to look he sees a lanky man in a button-down shirt and dress pants disappear through the back door.

“Wait here Cas, I gotta--”

Castiel’s hand comes up and yanks Dean back down with a surprising amount of force. “ _He will kill you. He will enjoy killing you. Need to get away from the cops. Cannot be seen by cops._ ”

“Are you kidding? We gotta get you to a hospital!” Dean finds himself signing as he speaks even though he knows it’s not necessary.

“ _No cops._ ” Castiel is already pushing himself up to his feet and limping out the side door by the time Dean comes to his senses.

“Come on.” He loops Castiel’s good arm over his shoulder - knowing that Castiel can walk perfectly fine, it’s his shoulder that’s wounded - and leads him out to the street.

They have to duck behind a dumpster briefly as three squad cars and the rental Dean recognizes as Vic’s go speeding by. His own rental isn’t park too far away and together they manage to get Castiel tucked away in the back seat.

“Stay there. I’ll go deal with this.”

Castiel stares at him bewildered, as if truly seeing Dean for the first time, but he nods.

When Dean comes running around the corner, the cops are just about to bust in to the warehouse, their formation sloppy and no one watching their rear.

“Too late. He got away.”

Vic and the other cops turn to him in surprise. As he gets closer, Dean can see the way Vic’s grip on his firearm tightens and his lips purse into a familiar hard line. He waves the police on and Dean can hear him ordering a full search of the property and all in the district as he walks closer.

“Did you get a good look at him?” Vic’s immediately all business and Dean’s grateful for it.

“Barely. But I think it’s our guy. Six-four, lanky build, gray hair. Gotta be Alastair.”

“Damn.” Vic scrubs a hand over his face, looking around the area as if the answer will be written there or the perps face will be graffited on the wall somewhere. That’s when he gets a good look at Dean. “You okay? Is that blood?”

“Huh?” Dean looks down at the cuff of his jacket and indeed there is a smear of blood there and on his hand too. “Oh. No, it’s some kind of fluid, probably from one of the old machines inside.” The lie rolls off his tongue easily and Vic nods along. “Listen, you think you can handle the clean up stuff here? I’m not uh-- Not feeling so hot.”

Vic frowns, but nods. “Yeah. First day back doing real work, first fire fight in a long while. Go crash. I’ll stop by when I’m done here.”

For a moment, Dean is grateful for the shit that got him suspended, grateful that it gives him an excuse to go back to the car and back to Castiel.

“Yeah, I will. See you at the hotel, dude.” He pats Vic on the arm and does his best to walk slowly and calmly until he gets around the corner. When he closer to the car, he can’t see Castiel through the windows and his throat clogs up. He runs then, but when he yanks open the back door Castiel is hunched low in the seat, one hand pressed firmly against his wound, while the other presses buttons on his cell phone.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Dean finds himself snapping. He’s trying not to think about the whys or hows just yet, he’s not sure he can process much of anything, at least not until Castiel is safe.

“ _Sorry. We should go now_.”

Somehow Dean doesn’t think that Castiel is sorry at all, but he closes the door and walks around to the driver’s side anyway.

This all seems like something out of those girly soap operas that Sam likes to watch. Dean’s mute boyfriend turns up a a potential crime scene, all decked out with weapons and gets wounded and this has to be someone else’s life? There’s panic welling up in Dean’s throat and it stings, makes him think of days he’d much rather forget. He’s tempted to give in to it, to drive straight for the hotel and lose himself in the nearest bottle he can find, but one glance in the rearview mirror stops him.

Castiel is hunched over, breathing hard, eyes squeezed shut tight against the pain that must be riding over him like waves. Dean realizes then that he barely knows anything about this guy, that all the things he thought he knew were just filler. The guy bleeding all over his rental seems like a stranger now and Dean’s chest aches at the thought.

Castiel groans and Dean puts the car into drive.


	3. Act III

This dream is different than the others, but the end is still the same.

He drags himself along the ground as the world turns to ash and soot cakes the inside of his throat. He already knows the way, already knows exactly where he’s going, already knows that the screaming won’t stop. It hasn’t before, why should it stop now?

The door opens and he can see her - except it’s not her, it’s not Mama. It’s Dean.

Dean’s clawing at the ground and his mouth is open and it’s letting out the most horrible screams while the fire consumes him. Castiel reaches out for him, those green eyes boring into him, but the darkness is coming. That void, that dark shape that always steals him away before he can save her, save them. It’s there, but this time it doesn’t drag him away.

The man, the one made of darkness and terror, suddenly splits open, pearly white teeth grinning down at him before his hand curls into Dean’s hair, yanks his head back and tears his throat open with claws. Castiel watches as the blood spills out, seeps into the carpet.

It may be a dream, but the pain feels real. The dream may be different this time, but in the end no one is saved.

 

 

There are many things that Dean didn’t know before that he knows now.

Number one: Castiel knows how to use a gun. And a knife. Of course, Dean hasn’t actually seen him use it, but they had been in his hands when Dean entered the warehouse and the moment they got into the hotel room more knives and guns were revealed to him, yeah, it was pretty safe to say that Castiel might know how to use the weapons he carries around.

Number two: Dean’s a little afraid of Castiel. Of course, he’d been afraid enough for the both of them back there and had done his best to get him and Castiel out of there alive. Dean had known before that Castiel was strong, but now he knew that Castiel can wield a knife and fire a gun and is probably messed up with some seriously bad shit if he was in that warehouse and, yeah, here comes the fear again. But how could he be sure that it wasn’t Castiel working with the insane-o firing bullets and singing songs at them? He could always ask, but would he get the truth?

And number three: Castiel can talk. Well, obviously not with his voice (and damned if Dean isn’t dying to ask if it’s some kind of condition or if Castiel just doesn’t want to talk, but he can’t bring himself to), but with his hands and that’s good enough for Dean. On the way back to the hotel, Castiel didn’t say much, just sat hunched over in the back seat with his left hand pressed to the hole in his right shoulder while the other worked to text furiously.

“Who you texting?” Dean went for casual, but it came out more like pre-pubescent teenager when his voice broke.

Castiel’s fingers paused long enough to spell out C-O-U-S-I-N before they went back to work.

Dean wanted to say more, wanted to ask for a name, if they came here together, _what in the hell was Castiel doing here?_ But he already knew that one question would spiral into another and he also knew that he just couldn’t afford to think of that right now. They’d been shot at by some Frank Sinatra singing lunatic, Castiel had actually been _shot_ and Dean could feel the panic rising up in his gut. It felt a lot like vomit.

As soon as they made it to Dean’s hotel room, Castiel was peeling off his trenchcoat and sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed.

Dean stood awkwardly at the door, wondering if maybe he should show Castiel around, but then he realized this wasn’t his apartment.

The silence held until Dean laid his coat and suit jacket over the armchair.

“Cas, what the hell happened back there?” Honestly, Dean isn’t the only one surprised at how calm his voice is. He’s barely hanging on to that calm, but at least he still has it.

It probably helps that, for the first time in years, Dean can hear his father’s voice in his head, _Don’t panic, Dean. Only cowards panic. You’re not a coward, are you?_

Dean stands there and watches the way Castiel’s hands still halfway through unbuttoning his shirt. The man before him seems like a stranger now, he looks like a lost child, but not in the way that Dean would normally think. He imagines Castiel standing in a mall, clearly alone, but constantly searching, determined to be found.

“ _You encountered Alastair._ ” Castiel’s hands move through the air lethargically, his right hand moving slower than the left. “ _Be grateful we made it out alive. If he had his way he would have made a banquet of us._ ” Castiel’s eyes finally - _finally_ \- looked towards Dean, an appraising, cool glance and nothing more. “ _Especially you._ ”

Someone punched him in the gut. That’s the only explanation for why Dean suddenly drops into the armchair like an anvil.

“What were you doing there, Cas?” The man’s hands are moving again, gently peeling away the bloodied fabric from his wound. “You could have gotten hurt! Jesus, you could have been _killed_.”

This time the realization hits Dean like a kidney shot.

Castiel huffs and Dean knows that if this were anyone else they would be rolling their eyes at him. “ _I was trying to stop you from being killed._ ”

“Me? How the hell--”

A fist pounds on the room door.

Castiel is up before Dean even realizes what’s going on; one minute Castiel was sitting on the bed, the next the bathroom door slams shut.

“Dean? You in there?”

Vic. Just Vic. No creepy, nails-on-a-chalkboard voice asking him to dance. Just Vic.

“Yeah, just a sec! I’m - uh - droppin’ a deuce!” Dean grimaces. Tasteless, but it’ll work.

“...Right.”

Dean manages to remember Castiel’s coat at the last moment and shoves it into his duffel bag before he finally lets Vic in.

“Sorry, man. What’d you find out?”

“Nothing exciting. Looked like someone had been camping out in that place for a while. Forensics is there now, and by forensics I mean the town doctor.” Vic rolls his eyes, hands on his hips and Dean feels weirdly grateful for something familiar.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Dean laughs just as he normally would have, but Vic’s eyes narrow.

“Hey, I know it’s gonna be hard getting back into the saddle, especially after the Jesse Turner case. Just... Take it easy today, huh?”

This time Dean smiles and it’s genuine. Leave it to Vic to give a damn at the best possible time.

“I don’t know, are you sure you can survive without me?” They laugh.

“I’ll manage.”

When Vic is gone and the door is locked, Dean turns to find that Castiel hasn’t emerged from the bathroom.

“Cas? Cas, you okay in there?” Dean knows he shouldn’t expect an answer, but still he presses his ear to the door anyway. Of course, there’s no answer and Dean figures that’s probably a sign that Castiel doesn’t want to talk. That maybe he should leave the guy to tend to his wound on his own. That maybe he should just get in the car and drive his stupid ass back to New York.

Instead, Dean opens the door.

Castiel hasn’t seen him yet, but Dean sees Castiel. His head is bowed, eyes concentrated on cleaning the blood away. Dean can’t see his face, but he assumed it’d be tight with pain. But all of that Dean is aware of only later. Right now, all he can stare at is Castiel’s back.

The scars are old, Dean knows enough about biology to know that, but still they look painful. The skin is raised and gnarled, almost reminding him of the bark of a tree. It looks like someone stretched and pulled it at random then tried to paste it back on. The scars shine under the dim light of the bathroom, the worst of them focused at Castiel’s shoulder blades and tapering down his back. Maybe they should disgust Dean, maybe he should be turning away, maybe he should pity Castiel, but all he feels is a burning need to know. What happened? How did he get these scars? Do they still hurt? _Is Cas okay?_  


[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=10p53b4)

  
Dean realizes then that Castiel is looking at him through the mirror and, God, there it is. That beautiful openness, that vulnerability that Dean has only seen on this man’s face a few times. He steps forward and closes his fingers around Castiel’s wrist. The man flinches, but he doesn’t push Dean away. Castiel lets himself be led back into the bedroom where Dean sits him back at the edge of the bed.

Castiel is still there when Dean returns with the first aid kit from his bag. When Dean sits down beside Castiel, the man only stiffens, but he doesn’t run away. It’s only once Dean has a gauze pad ready that Castiel moves away, that the man’s hands come up to halt his.

“ _Don’t. You shouldn’t look. I can take care of myself._ ”

Dean believes him, of course. In fact, he’s certain that Castiel has done this before, has probably done more on his own. He’s certain of this because, even while Castiel’s hands are telling him that he’s fine, that barely contained panic in those perfect baby blues of his are saying something entirely different.

“I know you can, Cas.” He doesn’t think about it, Dean simply moves. His free hand comes up to cup Castiel’s face, thumb tracing over the curve of his jaw. “But unless you’re bendy enough to reach your back, you’re gonna have to suck it up, buttercup.” Dean smiles like it’s easy and, even with all the crazy shit that’s happened, even knowing that he didn’t know Cas as well as he thought, looking into those eyes, it really is that easy.

Castiel still looks like he’s gonna bolt, his hands curled into tight fists on his knees, but slowly he nods.

The scars are worse close up. When Dean braces one hand just below Castiel’s shoulder blade he can feel the ridges of them beneath his hand. He expected they would feel dry, but they feel just like any other skin, just skin that’s been twisted and pulled out of it’s natural shape. They feel hot to the touch, hotter than the rest of Castiel’s body or maybe that’s just Dean’s imagination. The man is rigid all over and when Dean glances down he can see that Castiel’s knuckles have turned white and that his jaw is ticking. But Castiel doesn’t pull away.

The bullet hole is small, but messy. Castiel’s damn lucky that it wasn’t worse or they’d have no choice but to get to a hospital. Dean keeps his touch light as his hands get to work cleaning away the blood from the wound. It looks worse than it actually is, but Dean is careful nonetheless. Neither of them says anything at first, Dean simply cleans and disinfects, then gets to work with a needle and thread. It isn’t much and it isn’t the best, but it’s all that Dean can do.

Without being asked, Castiel begins to talk in the only way he knows.

His hand movements are small again and he does his best to keep still, but Dean understands.

_“Rachel was beautiful._ ” His hands falter before he begins again, “ _She was very much like her father, serious and stubborn, but she had a kind heart. She and Balthazar are the ones who took care of me. Michael is my legal guardian, but they are my blood._ ” His hands are slow, cautious not just of his wound, but of saying these things out loud. Dean can feel the questions seeming to literally bubble up in his throat, but he can’t bring himself to voice them, not when Castiel is already giving him so much. “ _Michael ordered me to kill Alastair. I obey._ ”

Castiel’s hands hover in the air, as if there is more he wants to say, but then they fell back to his lap.

_Calm, Dean. You need to be calm._ Dad’s right, of course. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“So what, you some kind of lethal mute assassin?” Dean attempts a laugh as he ties the knot of Castiel’s stitches, thinking to himself that this scar will just be one more to add to all the others.

It’s a joke, but Castiel’s head tilts to the side before he jerks his head in a short nod. “ _Technically, you are correct._ ”

Sucker punched this time. Not only is the man he’s been fooling around with every chance he got mute, but he is also an assassin trained by the mafia, an assassin sent to kill the man Dean has been sent to arrest. His back is covered in burn scars that he can barely stand to have touched, plus the dozens of other, newer ones that Dean saw there too. And here Dean was thinking that he’d found the perfect partner, all silent and sexy and mysterious (although if Dean took a moment to reflect he’d remember the way his stomach jolted when he saw Castiel standing there, holding those weapons like they were made for his hands).

“The scars?” The words tumble out of his mouth and there’s nothing he can do to take them back now, even if he wanted to.

“ _A fire, when I was young. Arson, so they say._ ” Castiel looks as if he expected this sooner, had the words all planned out. “ _My mother, Anna, was in that fire. She died. My uncle Lucifer managed to pull me out. He saved me._ ” The muscle in Castiel’s jaw ticks as he speaks, but Dean isn’t sure if it’s because of the stitches or the topic.

Dean closes up the hole on Castiel’s front mostly because he can’t bare to do much else. He keeps telling himself that he just has to get to the next step, get Cas stitched up and then - and then what?

The task is done and Dean stands. A hand scrubs over his face hard, as if to pull away all the confusion, all the questions rumbling through his head and demanding attention. He looks at Cas and watches the man finish taping pads of gauze over the stitches. It feels like the whole room is cackling with electricity, Dean can practically feel the tension pressing down on his chest demanding he say _something_ , anything that might resolve this.

“I was gonna ask you to come to dinner next Saturday.” The words come and Dean doesn’t even bother to stop them. “Dinner with me and Sammy. He’s the only family I have left now and I wanted you to meet him. And even if he didn’t like you I was gonna tell him to shove it up his ass because I like you.” His palms sting and he realizes that he’s digging his nails right into the skin. He doesn’t stop. “I figured you were just going for the mysterious charm, or that maybe you just didn’t want to spill your guts to me. Not like I did, you know, telling you shit I’ve never told anyone else before--” Dean stops there because he knows that if he doesn’t, the words will just keep spilling out of his mouth like they do almost every time he’s around Cas. There’s a lump in his throat and he doesn’t like that it’s there.

And Castiel just sits and looks at him, eyes focused on him, a slow determination building there. It’s only when Castiel raises his hands to speak that he actually looks away.

“ _I used to love someone. His name was Inias. He was very kind to me, he was good. I told him everything._ ” His hands falter briefly, before moving with determination, even if the moment causes Castiel pain. “ _I brought him to meet Michael and Lucifer. I made it clear that I loved him. That he was the one I chose. Michael never said anything. He didn’t have to. I should have known better, but I was young. Three days later he ended up in the hospital. The doctors said he wouldn’t ever wake up. So his parents had him taken off life support. I learned my lesson._ ” Castiel’s eyes finally come back to him and Dean feels pinned down by that gaze all over again. “ _That’s why I had to protect you. The less you know about me, the better off you are. The safer you are._ ”

It’s hard to be angry with someone when they tell you something like that. When they lay out all of their pain they’ve kept locked up for so long and ask you to understand, maybe even make it hurt less. It’s hard to feel betrayed when you know that pain too. Dean’s palms are sweating and there’s a pang in his gut and his father’s voice is telling him not to do it, to not just let this go like it’s all gonna be okay, but--

Dean moves forward until he’s standing right in front of Cas. The tension is visible in the way his hands turn into fists again, those hands that look so beautiful when they’re moving through the air, practically dancing on it, so much more graceful with the words he makes than Dean could ever hope to be. Castiel’s eyes aren’t on him anymore and Dean decides he doesn’t like that. So he crouches down until he’s almost face to face with Castiel, searching out the man’s gaze until he has no choice, but to meet Dean’s eyes.

He wants to tell Castiel that it’s okay. That he knows that it’s not easy, that being with him isn’t easy and not just because of his crazy family or because of who they are. He wants to say that he knows and that he’s sorry he can’t make it any easier. He wants to tell Cas that even with all of that crap, he would still choose this. He wants to tell Castiel that he’s finally getting it, finally starting to realize what’s important and what he wants in life and that he wants Castiel to be there for that too.

But Dean doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, Dean leans in, eyes watching Castiel’s. He leans in until their lips are touching and it’s only then that his eyes close. They’ve had many kisses since they’ve been together, but this one feels different. It feels like a promise. Dean waits there with his lips pressed against Castiel’s chapped ones until he can feel them start to move, until Castiel kisses him back.

Immediately, the fire rises in Dean and he wants to wrap his arm around Cas, haul their bodies in tight together. But this time is so different from all the others. This time, Castiel is more vulnerable than usual. Dean’s never seen this much of Castiel’s skin, let alone the scars. So instead of rushing forward, Dean slows to a crawl. His lips move with Castiel’s leisurely, pulling at them and tasting them with great care, sampling them like he would fine wine while his hands hold gently onto each of the man’s knees. They move up slowly, gliding up Castiel’s cloth-covered thighs and feeling the gentle way they twitch and clench under his touch.

It’s only when his thumbs peak over the top of Castiel’s pantline that the man finally pulls away. When he does, those blue eyes are wide, bright with fear, and Dean sees it.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Cas.” As he speaks, Dean’s thumbs move in small circles over Castiel’s hipbones, the tips of his fingers just beginning to touch the very edge of the scars at the man’s lower back. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.” Castiel’s eyes widen and he looks like a child all over again, staring at Dean in wondering. Slowly, he nods and it’s only once he does that Dean allows his hands to continue.

They spread wide over the small of Castiel’s back and it’s easy to tell, even when he’s not looking where the skin was burned. The skin is so much softer at first, then, as his fingers move further up, he can feel the ridges of the real damage begin, except he doesn’t really think of it as damaged or marred or deformed, just-- otherworldly. On any other person they would seem like they don’t belong, but as Dean’s fingers trace over the shape of burns implanted on Castiel’s skin, he thinks that this is what makes Castiel who he is.

It’s Castiel who kisses him now, kisses him with lips that nip and suck with a new desperation, his tongue pushing it’s way into Dean’s mouth and re-learning all the curves. Hands curl around each of Dean’s biceps, tugging him closer and Dean goes willingly, falling forward with his hands trapped under Castiel’s back and nestled just between the man’s legs.

Castiel hisses against his lips and Dean pulls back instantly. The wound, the bullet hole, he’d totally forgotten the whole thing.

But Castiel just shakes his head, right hand coming up to cover Dean’s mouth. Then his hand is curling around the back of Dean’s neck and pulling him down and in, fitting their mouths together and Dean loses all train of thought.

They move together slowly, undressing with careful movements - partly because of Castiel’s shoulder and partly because they keep stopping to kiss and caress each piece of new skin revealed to them. Dean especially. Castiel had never been this bare to him before, this open and Dean takes advantage of every moment.

At first, he looked to Castiel for permission, waited for the slight nod of the man’s chin before he pressed his lips to the skin of his chest and laid out his claim. By the end, Castiel’s chest and shoulders and neck are peppered with pink marks of varying sizes. His fingers trace words into Castiel’s skin, words like ‘ _Mine_ ’ and ‘ _Love_ ,’ saying the things he couldn’t say. Not yet.

Dean keeps going until Castiel is writhing under him, until he stops tensing up and freezing each time Dean’s fingers graze over his scars. He moves further and further down the man’s body, those pink nipples just as he’s been dreaming they’d be since the first time they were together, telling himself that one day he would have the time, one day he would show Castiel just how good it could feel. Dean takes his time now, sucking them into his mouth, swirling his tongue around them, nipping at them and listening to the way Castiel gasps, feeling the tug of Castiel’s hands fisted into his hair, holding him in place.

He moves further than that, dragging his lips down Castiel’s body, tracing the lines of hardened muscles, tasting all of his skin. As his lips suck at the man’s hipbones, Dean can feel the smooth head of Castiel’s cock twitching and bumping against the skin of his throat. He draws it out a little longer, waits until Castiel’s hands are squeezing in his hair urgently and the man’s hips begin to thrust up towards him gently. Then, when he knows that Castiel is desperate, knows it in the way he moans and arches into Dean’s touch, then Dean takes the man’s cock in one hand and puts his mouth on him.

He makes it good, takes his time to lick languidly at the underside of Castiel’s cock, suckles gently on the head. Maybe this doesn’t happen very often for Cas or maybe he just doesn’t let it happen, but soon Castiel is gripping almost painfully on to what hair Dean had, trembling and shivering and keening out needy little whimpers. But Dean doesn’t want it to end like this, doesn’t want it to be over so soon. So he pulls away, ignoring the way Castiel huffs out his disagreement.

“Turn over, Cas.”

There’s hesitation again, it’s there in the way Castiel’s hands curl in his hair and the way his body tenses back up again. Dean is opening his mouth, about to tell Castiel that it’s still okay, that he’d take care of him, but then Castiel is turning over anyway. Dean’s hands guide Castiel again, leading him until he’s up on all fours and steady.

“I got you, Cas. I got you.” He starts slow all over again. His hands roam over Castiel’s back, tracing the scars again, learning their form and shape. He’s almost begun to think of them as extensions of Castiel, a part of him and yet not. He can feel Castiel moving and pauses, leaning around to see the man’s hands. “What?”

“ _No sensation. Nerve endings burned in some places._ ” It isn’t easy to sign when he’s propped onto his elbows, but Castiel manages and Dean understands.

But that doesn’t stop Dean from touching, from etching the sight of the scars into his brain with his hands. He waits again until Castiel stops twitching, stops instinctively pulling away. He can feel the tension in Castiel’s muscles and he tries his best to massage it away, working to relax Castiel more and more. When Castiel starts to press back against him, when his cock starts to slide between the man’s cheeks, Dean pulls away only to slide further down.

His hands are careful as they spread Castiel’s ass cheeks apart and bare his hole to the air. His mouth is gentle as it pressed kisses to the man’s skin before moving to his entrance and sealing over it. Tongue licking long stripes over his hole, Dean works to loosen the hole with his tongue, dipping inside on every second stripe. It’s only when he can feel Castiel’s body giving in, opening up to him, that Dean pushes a wet finger inside.

They’d done this before, but never quite like this. Somehow, Dean thought that if he messed this up it would never be the same for them, they would never come back from this. So he has to be careful, he has to take this slow, he can’t ruin this.

Two fingers are inside Castiel now, pumping slowly, curving up with each thrust in and feeling the way the man’s body seizes around him as he presses against that sweet spot. Two fingers working Castiel open, scissoring and preparing the way for something bigger (if Dean was being modest). Castiel is shivering around him, shivering as Dean’s free hand continues to roam over his scarred back, over his ass, squeezing gently at his balls. Dean keeps going and going, working Castiel up slowly, building it up until even he’s starting to pant with need, with the desperate urge to be buried inside of this warmth. And he knows that Castiel is feeling it too, knows it in the way Castiel starts pushing back to meet the thrust of his fingers, the way he arches into Dean’s touch. But he doesn’t stop until Castiel stretches a hand back to get Dean’s attention and presses the fingertips of each hand together, tapping them against each other.

“ _More_.”

Castiel may not have said the words out loud, but still Dean finds himself almost swaying with it, with that open look of desperate need on Castiel’s face.

There’s no way Dean can say no to that.

He finds the lube that has been buried in his pocket along with the condom, leftovers from the last time they were together like this.

And when Dean slides into Castiel, slides in like this body was made for his, cock sliding home and the curves of their bodies fitting together like pieces of a puzzle, Dean knows that this is it for him. Castiel is it.

They both quake, Dean’s front pressed tight up against Castiel’s back. Then, as if through unspoken agreement, they start to move together, Castiel pushing back to meet Dean’s thrust forward. They move as though it’s the most natural thing in the world, to be loved like this.

Dean’s lips press against the ridges of Castiel’s scars and he can feel the man shudder beneath him, around him. He whispers words like, “Beautiful,” and “Perfect,” against the shell of Castiel’s ear, though he’s not aware he’s doing it.

They move together like this, bodies wound tight around each other, fingers entwined as if this could be the last time. And when they rise over the crest, when they start to get desperate, when gentle turns to nothing but need, Dean vows that he won’t lost this. He _can’t_ lose this. Not now. Not ever.

Laying together later, they don’t speak. Everything that needed to be said has already gone by and now they just need this. Dean doesn’t know how this is gonna end and there’s still so much he doesn’t know about Cas, but he does know that he wants this. Wants it more than he’s wanted anything in such a long time.

They fall asleep sticky and sated and, for the first time in twenty-six years, Castiel sleeps through the night.

 

 

The messages that Castiel sends Dean are not cute and they do not contain the time and location of the next time they will meet. To say that Dean is disappointed about that is an understatement, but it’s better than not hearing from Castiel at all.

Instead, the messages that Castiel sends Dean contain information and with the help of this information, Dean and Vic manage to put three drug dealers, two pimps, and four arms smugglers behind bars and gain more information about Alastair's whereabouts. Of course, each time they arrive to pick up one of these drug dealers, they are already tied and gagged and ready to talk. Dean doesn’t see the need in asking who tied them up and, thank God, Vic follows his lead. Vic asked questions later, but Dean only gave vague answers, half-mumbled replies and he could tell that Vic was getting anxious. It was too much like last time, Dean knew, but this time was different.

For a whole two weeks, Dean doesn’t see Castiel, but he finds himself staring at every dark head of hair and tan coat he sees, hoping that the man will turn around and Castiel will be there. But he isn’t, and Dean forces himself to continue.

It should be weird, this thing they have. Everything has happened so quickly, Cas has happened so quickly and there’s a logical part of Dean that’s telling him this is all wrong. Some times he catches himself wondering if this is really right. Shouldn’t it be strange to feel (not that Dean would ever actually admit out loud to having _feelings_ ) this way after knowing this guy for all of a couple months? Shouldn’t this be awkward? Shouldn’t he be freaked out and heading for the fucking hills?

Except he’s not. There’s no real way to explain it. When his head starts to spin, when he finds himself wondering just _what the fuck_ he’s doing, he thinks of Cas and it all stops. He thinks of the way Cas looked in his arms that night when they took things easy, when they learned so much more about each other, when Dean finally got the courage to open himself up to someone again. When he thinks of Cas like that, all the worries and the fears just seem to slide away like they weren’t even there in the first place.

It happened once before and only once, but it never felt quite like this. Some times he thinks that Cas was so much like her, like Lydia, but that’s wrong too. Lydia was passionate and stubborn and brash. Cas is too, but in a different way. He keeps it all bottled up, hidden under the surface and when it finally comes out it feels like being knocked over by a tidal wave and Dean’s all too happy to let himself be carried along by it. The good and the bad.

They’re getting closer to Alastair with each passing day and Dean knows that it wouldn’t be possible without Castiel’s help. Only Castiel can do the things that Dean’s job won’t let him do. Of course, more than anything, Dean wishes he could be out there in the thick of it _with_ Castiel, but he also knows that he has a role to play in this too. Dean had helped get Cas the information that he needed, had even led Gordon Walker’s major crimes division astray when they were getting too close.

Gordon Walker never seemed to like Dean. Maybe it was because of John Winchester or maybe it was because Dean and Gordon were competing for the same job, except Dean won. Or maybe it was out of simple spite. Either way, Dean did get a bit too much satisfaction out of convincing Walker and his partner that Michael Giordano was staging a huge drug deal on the west end of the city (only part of this was true: Castiel was on the west end and it did have to do with a certain drug dealer knowing where a certain wanted serial killer was hiding, but it didn’t matter ‘cause Walker ended up stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge for two hours).

If any of his superiors found out, he would be done this time, no passing Go, no collecting two hundred dollars. Bobby was already suspicious and kept sending him strange looks every time he pulled someone in and they were only too happy to hand over information. Their jobs weren’t supposed to be this easy, nothing was. It didn’t help that the perps were usually banged up and that was enough to put Bobby on edge. Their job had rules and limitations and there was definitely a limit on brutalizing suspects. But, for once, Dean’s hands were clean in this and they both knew Bobby couldn’t fault him for that.

Yet it seemed that no matter what Dean and Castiel managed to accomplish, Alastair was one step ahead of them all the way.

Until the night Dean receives a text.

 

 

He’d be lying if he said that the only reason he wanted to go was to find out information. He’d be lying if he said that this was about work and nothing else. Luckily, Dean doesn’t say any of those things, he simply shows up.

The building is horribly run-down, the white of the concrete facing starting to look more of a mix between pus yellow and mouldy green, but he isn’t going to complain. He’s seen and lived in far worse than this. The hike up eight flights of stairs is something he could have done without.

The door he knocks on is cleaner than the exterior of the apartment building, but not by much. But it’s Castiel who answers, and that certainly helped to improve the scenery.

Dean doesn’t realize how tightly wound his stomach is until he steps inside. The apartment is plain and sparsely furnished with not a single decoration to brighten the place up. It hardly looks lived in until Dean sees Castiel’s coat hanging by the door and the shoes lined up so neatly. Castiel is hovering, watching him take the place in, standing there in dark blue jeans and a charcoal grey shirt and, if Dean didn’t know any better, he might say that Castiel is fidgeting.

“Nice place.” It’s strange to think of Castiel having a home of his own, but if Dean had to pick a place, this would be it.

Castiel signs, “ _Thank you,_ ” almost nervously, his fingers twitching through the air to touch his chin.

“I like it.” Dean smiles, knowing that he’s telling the truth; he likes this place because it is Castiel’s and he tends to like everything about Castiel.

The corners of the man’s lips twitch. “ _This is the first time I’ve had visitors. My cousin stops by, but..._ ”

If could just be the light, but for a second Dean almost sees a blush starting to flush across Castiel’s cheeks. His fingertips itch and he reaches a hand out, grazing the swell of Castiel’s cheek with his fingers and watching a real blush rise. Dean moves forward until chapped lips are brushing against his own and the kiss is soft, cautious. There’s always a pause, a moment where Castiel stiffens and seems like he’s going to bolt. But it’s over quickly and then those lips are kissing back, pressing into his with quiet urgency. Dean’s hand finds that spot right at the nape Castiel’s neck, that spot that always feels like it was molded for his hand. Castiel’s hands fist in Dean’s shirt and pull him closer, tilting his head up and letting out a soft little sigh as his mouth opens up for Dean’s tongue.

He’s not sure how long they stand there, in the hallway of this blank apartment with their mouths open against each other’s. He just knows that he doesn’t want this moment to end.

But it must.

When they finally pull away from each other, Castiel’s eyes are just barely open, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. Dean finds himself praying that there was more time, that he could just have one year, at least that, just one year to learn all about this man, to learn every curve and dip of his body, to learn the way his hands move when he speaks, to know everything and anything about Castiel. But the very last thing they have is time.

The coffee table is littered with photos of various places, many of the ones buried under others Dean recognizes as places that Castiel sent him. Castiel’s signs something about tea and disappears into the kitchen; Dean reaches forward to shift through some of the images. One in particular, right at the very top, catches his eye.

In it, a slender six foot three man looks over his shoulder, watching his back as he enters through the back door of an abandoned warehouse.

Castiel comes back with a steaming mug that he sets on the floor. Abruptly, the picture that Dean has is ripped from his hand as Cas goes about gathering up all the papers and piling them, his mouth set into a hard line.

“Cas, what the hell?” Dean wants to take the pages back from the man, but he doesn’t dare after the look Cas shoots him.

“ _The less you know, the safer you are._ ” The papers are all gone now, stuffed into a cardboard box that’s folded shut. Cas seems to tower over him, but without the trenchcoat he seems less threatening, like his barrier has been removed. Dean wants to argue, but he’s distracted by the glimpse of hipbone where Cas’s shirt has ridden up.

“Bullshit, I’m here to he-- What are you doing?”

Cas’s hands have fisted in the hem of his shirt and slowly, hesitatingly, Dean watches as the man pulls it up over his head and off. His face his pale, every line in his body hard, but he steps forward, placing a knee on the couch, right next to Dean’s hip before swinging the other over. Just like that, Dean’s lap is full of Castiel and all his thoughts grind to a halt.

“Cas,” Dean murmurs unable to look away from bright blue eyes that gleam at him from under dark eyelashes. “What--”

The answer is a kiss, one that’s hard and desperate. Cas’s hands are clinging to his shoulders and Dean is pushed back into the cushions of the couch as the man presses into him. He tries to speak once more, but there’s something there under the teeth biting at his lips and the tongue delving into his mouth. It’s need, overwhelming and wild need.

He should be pulling away and asking what’s wrong, but he’s afraid to know.

So Dean kisses back just as hard, arms coming up to wrap around Cas’s waist and pull him in close. His fingertips brush against the scars again and Cas goes rigid in his arms and everything stops. They stop, lips parting for just a moment when Dean whispers, “It’s okay. I got you.”  


  
[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2im5bmp)

  


  
Then Cas is back and his mouth is open and wet and warm and his hands are scrambling to pull at Dean’s shirt, but Dean doesn’t want to move his hands away, doesn’t want to let go of Cas, not yet. He finally does when the man’s nails drag over his skin and it hurts, but Dean shivers with it too. He finally lifts his arms and lets Cas drag his t-shirt up and off, and then it’s skin on skin and it’s perfect.

Cas’s hands are roaming everywhere, feeling every bit of skin that’s available to him and Dean moans. It’s strange that such a simple touch can effect him so much, can make him feel like an electric current is travelling along the same path as Castiel’s hand. Then those nails are back, digging in ever so slightly and Dean has to press his lips to the hollow of Castiel’s throat to smother a groan. He gets his revenge then, in the scrape of teeth to skin and Castiel’s nails dig in deeper, his head falling back with a low moan.

It could be so easy, to pretend they’re just normal lovers with normal lives. And just this once, Dean lets himself pretend that’s all they are - normal.

Cas’s crotch grinds down and there’s too many layers of clothing between them but that doesn’t stop it from feeling so good, doesn’t stop Dean’s hands from shooting out to grab at the man’s hips and pulling away from their bruising kiss. He watches Cas’s body writhe, hips moving in small circles as his mouth falls open with needy little sighs. He watches the way those lithe muscles underneath pearly skin, skin that will always be perfect to Dean, even with its scars.

Every sense is heightened, the way Cas’s skin feels under his palms, the faint of sweat and sex hanging in the air, the taste of Castiel’s mouth on his tongue, the sound of the man’s whimpers panted out against his ear. Dean’s hand is shoved down the front of Castiel’s pants and it feels so much like the first time that his chest aches at the thought. Fingers are carding through his short hair, tugging on what strands they can catch when Dean curls his fingers tight around Castiel’s cock and swipes the pad of his thumb over that little hole where precome is just beginning to seep out.

He brings his wet thumb up to his mouth and sucks the taste of Castiel off. When he looks up, Castiel is staring at his mouth with a hunger that makes his cock jolt in his jeans. Then Castiel’s tongue is delving inside and sucking at his tongue until Dean’s moaning and his hips are jerking up to find some friction.

But Castiel pulls away and Dean lets out a growl of frustration until he realizes what the man intends to do. He watches with quiet awe as Cas strips bare right before him, mouth watering at the sight of his cock all red and slick. He wants to put his mouth on it, wants to make Castiel fall apart again, wants to make it happen with just his mouth and his hands.

Cas doesn’t give him the chance as he climbs right back into Dean’s lap, hands grappling with his belt buckle while Dean preoccupies himself with sucking bruises into the crest of the man’s shoulder. Castiel’s hand grips him tight, pumping him slow and languid while his other hand comes up to his mouth and, using his teeth, he rips open the package of a condom.

“Cas, wait-- _Fuck_ , wait!” Dean tries to stop him because they’re not ready for this yet, _Cas_ isn’t ready for this yet. But Cas just bats his hands away and then he’s sinking down onto Dean’s cock so fucking easy, his hole already lubed up, his hole already stretched out and waiting and Dean’s jaw clenches painfully tight at that tight heat sinking down on him.

Castiel was ready for this, Cas planned this and now Dean knows it. He can’t stop picturing Cas spreading himself open for Dean, getting his hole all slick and wet so Dean can just slide in like this. His hips buck up and Cas moans so fucking loud and _needy_ that Dean has to do it again.

Soon, Dean’s perched right on the edge of the couch with Castiel’s legs wrapped tight around his waist, arms tight around each other as they move together. They’re sweating with the effort of holding on just a little more, drawing this out as long as they can, clinging to each other like this may be the last time.

And maybe it is because when Dean comes he whispers four words like a plea, like he’s begging, “I love you, Cas.”

And when Castiel buries his face in Dean’s neck, his body shuddering as he comes, Dean can feel the sobs that shake Castiel’s frame and there’s wetness on his shoulder.

 

 

When he wakes, he’s laying naked on the couch, covered with a thin sheet. And he is alone. Dean searches the apartment, but Cas is no where to be found. In fact, there is no evidence that Castiel was ever there at all. The apartment looks the same as it did when he first walked through the door, blank and dull, but now it actually feels _empty_.

Dean sends Castiel a text, washes up and sends another text. He sits on the bare mattress, trying to tell himself not to worry. They’ve had it rough lately. It only makes sense that Castiel would take a while to respond. He texts the man again. He waits for three hours before he forces himself to leave. It’s unbearable to be here, in this place that felt so warm last night and now it only feels like a crypt.

 

 

The next day, Castiel has still not replied. Dean keeps texting anyway.

 

 

Two days later, Dean is getting desperate, worried. But there’s no one out there he can contact. No one he can ask for help. The only thing he can do is keep _trying to find Cas._

 

 

Three days later, he finally gets an answer.

 

 

The address Castiel sent him leads him to a meat factory in West Village. It obviously hasn’t been in use in years since most of the windows are boarded up and the door practically screams when Dean hauls it open. It’s dark inside and reeks of rust and dust, and Dean is wondering what the hell Castiel wanted him here for. His fingers find the flashlight in his coat pocket and when he flicks it on, rats skitter out of the beam.

“Great.” Dean mumbles and forces himself forward. Cas has to have called him here for a reason. Maybe it’s some sick way of breaking up? The thought makes his stomach jolt and he forces it away. Most likely it has something to do with Alastair and the case. Probably another perp for Dean to pick up.

It isn’t until he finds them that he sees this for what it is.

Their bodies sway back and forth on meat hooks that are driven through their shoulders. Dean can tell from the smell that they’ve been there for days, swinging back and forth. The first girl has blonde hair that’s matted with blood. The second’s hair is so dark that he can hardly tell there’s any blood in her hair at all. Cuts and burns crisscross over their skin, but that’s not the worst.

A closer look and Dean can see the way they’re sewn together with red thread. It almost makes them look like puppets rather than human beings with the way the blonde’s left leg is sewn to the brunette's right, the way their fingers are laced together and then held there, palm to palm, by the same thread. Vaguely, gagging, Dean realizes that the brunette has the wings of a raven sewn onto her back. But perhaps the worst part is where their lips are connected, touching one another’s and forced to stay their with loops and loops of thread.

The more he stares, the more he _knows_ that this is a trap. He should get out. He should be running for his life, calling for back up.

But Alastair had lured him in using Castiel’s phone. Which probably meant he had Castiel here. He could even be using Cas as bait. The smart thing would have been to get help, to come back when he was ready, when the odds were even.

The bodies sway before him and Dean pulls his gun from it’s holster. He fires off a quick text to Victor before moving forward.

He needs to find Cas.

He barely makes it around the corner before darkness floods in and he feels the press of a cloth to his nose and mouth. _Choloform_ , he has enough time to think before he’s falling backwards and there’s a voice whispering into his ear.

“That’s right, my boy. My sweet, sweet boy.”

 

 

A hand slapping his face is what drags Dean out of it, forcing him back into the land of the conscious.

“Come on now, Dean-o. You’re gonna wanna be awake for this, son.”

“Alastair.” Dean groans out, eyes squinting against the stark brightness of the room, his head throbbing.

Alastair’s grin is wide and menacing. “Dean.” He drawls, face so close that Dean can feel that man’s breath on his face. “You really are a pretty one. I can see what he likes in you.”

The man moves away then and that’s when Dean see him. “Cas!”

Castiel is so close Dean could reach out and touch his face. He’s dangling from handcuffs that are looped over a hook similar to the ones that Dean saw thrusting out of those girl’s shoulders. All that remains of his clothes is the dress pants that Dean recognizes with a pang.

But Castiel’s skin... There aren’t any cuts like what Dean saw on the girls, but there are plenty of burns. They’re severe, but not as bad as they could be, not as bad as what Castiel had before. Dean can’t see Castiel’s face where it hangs down low, he can’t even tell if Cas is still alive. There’s no response when Dean calls Castiel’s name again.

“Looks great, doesn’t he? A real work of art. Not my best, not as good as the little present I left for you, but still quite beautiful.” Alastair murmurs beside him, his voice a low, nasal drone. Dean wants to get up, wants to beat Alastair within an inch of his life and then end it, but he’s strung up just the same as Cas and when he tries to move, his feet kick uselessly in the air. There’s something wrapped around his neck too, a thick cord of metal, but he doesn’t care, he can’t bring himself to care when Castiel needs _him_.

“Settle down, Dean. I’m not going to kill him. Not yet.” Alastair’s smile makes him feel sick and Dean can only watch as Alastair moves away from him and towards Castiel.

“Get the _hell_ away from him, you bastard.” Dean growls out as Alastair’s hand plucks something from the table beside Castiel. Alastair’s only response to his demand is a short, derisive laugh.

“Are you watching, Dean? You need to watch this. It’s no fun if you don’t watch.” The thing in Alastair’s hand comes into view and Dean recognizes it as a small butane torch. As soon as it’s on, Castiel starts to struggle, as if he heard the noise of it clicking to life.

Castiel’s feet are planted firmly on the floor and he uses them to push away, trying to get away as Alastair comes closer and closer to him with the torch in hand. As Castiel struggles to pull away, the cord around Dean’s neck tightens and tightens until he’s choking on screamed out words. He doesn’t know what’s going on he just knows that he can finally see Castiel’s face and all he reads there is pure, unabashed terror. Dean’s helpless to stop it and he can’t look away when Alastair brings the flame in close to Castiel’s skin, can’t look away when it turns red and starts to bubble over and Castiel lets out a howl.

“You son of a _bitch!_ ” Dean can’t stop screaming, but it doesn’t help and Alastair doesn’t pull the torch away until there’s a bright welt on Castiel’s hipbone.

Alastair turns the torch off and looks to Dean with wide eyes that are almost curious.

“Did you see that? The way he cowered away from it?” Alastair sidles forward, looking as excited as a child that’s about to pull the wings off a fly. “ You see, his little chain here is directly attached to the noose around your neck. Brilliant, isn’t it?” With a flick of a button the torch is on again and all Alastair has to do is hover it near Castiel’s skin and that noose is tightening all over again and Alastair waits until Dean’s on the verge of blacking out before he turns it off. “It’s the one thing he fears, Dean. Do you know why?

“I know why he fears it. I bet you do too. But do you know the whole story? It’s a good one. A real treat. You see, once upon a time, there was a beautiful red-haired girl. She was a bastard, the product of her sluttish mother. Her mother’s husband didn’t like her, of course, but what could he do? So he raised his youngest son to hate her too, to hate this pretty red-haired abomination. And then one day, many years later when they had all grown up, the red-haired girl went and got herself knocked up. Like mother like daughter, apple-tree, you know. She refused to say who the father was and nine months later, this angel was born. For a time, the harlot and her bastard lived in peace until one day their home was set on fire. You see, Uncle Lucifer didn’t like his sister very much. He believed that she was immoral, unworthy of life itself. So he made sure she died in that fire. Perhaps he meant to kill the bastard son too, or perhaps he had a different goal all along. Either way, that night Uncle Lucifer killed his sister and took her son, raised him to be the perfect assassin, raised him to do just as he was told. It worked, of course. Up to a point.”

Alastair came in close again, that cruel grin twisting his face into something horrible. “It worked, right up until that bastard angel met you. He met you and boy did you turn everything upside down, didn’t you? His precious knight.” The man’s arms come around Dean’s waist and tug him in close, as close as the chains will allow and Dean has never wanted to crawl out of his skin more. “But you and I both know you’re not so righteous as he’d like to think. We both know you’ve got a demon in you, Deanny-boy.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Dean grinds out through clenched teeth.

Alastair throws back his head and _laughs_.

“Should I tell him, Dean? All about that dirty little secret you’ve been carrying around in your back pocket instead of _celebrating_ your _gift_?” Alastair is practically giddy as he moves back to Cas and twirls the torch in his hand. Dean bucks in his restraints, tries to ignore the way the cuffs dig into his skin and the way his whole body throbs in protest, the swimming darkness that lingers.

“You think I don’t know what kind of _animal_ you are, Dean? I know everything about you. Probably more than your angel ever will. I know all about little Jesse and what you did. How you obsessed over the case for months. How you found his killer before anyone else, before your partner. How you made sure he suffered for hours before you finally made the call. Tortured him, broke him, beat him raw with your _fists_ , and all because he kidnapped and fucked a little boy. You didn’t have to do it. You could have called it in. Could have let your department deal with it. But you didn’t. You made the choice to beat a man nearly to death because _you wanted to_. You’ve got something special in you, Dean. Something cruel. I just wish I could keep you.”

Dean is sick, his stomach is twisted into painful knots and he wishes he could cover his ears, block out the man’s words. His knuckles throb with phantom pain, the pain of crashing them down skin and bone over and over again. It’s old pain, but it won’t ever fade. Just once he gave in, gave in to the devil on his shoulder that whispered in his ear. Reminded him that the bad guys never got the justice they deserved, especially the bad guys who put their hands on little boys and girls. Just once and it nearly cost him everything.

“There’s a grand scheme here, Dean. And I’ll tell you what it is and once I’m finished you’ll both be dead. You’ll be dead at the hands of your little angel, Dean.” Alastair’s eyes go dreamy for a moment before he turns on the torch again, yelling over Castiel’s moans and cries as the fire touches his skin again and whatever air Dean had left is snatched away. “You see, Lucifer doesn’t like you much, Dean. He doesn’t see the potential in you that I do. So he’s paid me a nice sum of money to have you permanently removed.” Castiel is twisting, writhing to get away from the fire as it starts to redden his skin, but Alastair doesn’t stop. Dean can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t do anything to stop it. Helpless and hopeless.

The man pulls the torch away and bends to examine the welt he’s left behind, his thumb digging into it hard enough to make Castiel scream and jerk back particularly hard. Dean’s vision is fading fast.

“You see, Lucifer is just as bad as his name implies. He put in a few favors to help me escape and in return, I vowed to kill his niece, darling Rachel.” Alastair brings the torch to Castiel’s skin _again_ , and every fibre in Dean’s body screams at him to do _something_. But he can’t. All he can do is wait for it to be over. “She was a fun one. So pretty. So lively. One of my best, you know. Oh, Dean, you would have _liked_ her.” Castiel is screaming as Alastair drags the flame down the middle of the man’s chest and Dean can’t do anything, can’t make it stop. “Lucifer wants his brother out of the way, he wants more power over their families assets. So he had me kill the last precious thing Michael had in this world - his daughter.”

Alastair turns flicks a switch on the torch and now Dean can feel the heat in the air. “I don’t know if it’s worked, but I know that it’s been _fun_.”

Dean watches Alastair put the torch to Castiel’s skin again, watches Castiel writhe and scream, struggling to get away from the heat. The cord around his neck goes tighter and tighter, and he knows for certain now that it’s going to end. He prays that Castiel makes it out alive, at least. That Castiel doesn’t blame himself.

His vision is turning white now and he’s struggling to keep his eyes open, struggling to see Cas.

Dean doesn’t see when Victor arrives. He doesn’t hear the shot that drops Alastair to the ground. He doesn’t see them lift Castiel down from his bonds, he doesn’t feel them release the noose from his neck.

He’s already gone.

 

 

It’s bright and white and for a moment Dean thinks that he really did it. He’s dead and this is heaven. Of course, that seems totally wrong because there’s no way someone like him could make it past the pearly gates.

“He’s waking up!” Sam. Must not be dead then because the last Dean checked, Sam was alive.

“Stop yelling, please.” Dean groans out and when he opens his eyes Sam’s leaning over him with wide, dewy eyes. “God, you’re such a girl.”

“Welcome back,” Sam laughs. Dean just grunts. His mouth feels like sandpaper and he feels like he just ran headfirst into a wall.

“How long have I been out?”

“Few days. It was touch and go for a while there.” Sam hides his face behind his stupid hair and Dean hates the pain and fear he sees there.

“Where’s Cas?” The last thing he remembers, they were both about to die.

“Cas?” Sam just stares at him blankly.

“He’s gone.”

Victor is standing in the doorway and it hurts Dean to turn his head to look, but he has to.

“Gone? What the fuck do you mean, Vic? How can he be--” Oh God, what if he didn’t make it? What if there wasn’t enough time?

“His ambulance never made it to the hospital. Or any hospital. When we tracked it down it was in the other side of Jersey and it was empty.”

“Empty?” He sounds like a broken record, but he doesn’t care. This means that Cas’s family probably took him, probably got him away from the cops. Or maybe it was Lucifer intervening again.

“We think he’s alive.” Victor and Sam share a glance that Dean doesn’t like. He doesn’t like that they seem to know how important it is to him to know this, to know that Castiel is alive. “Someone sent us this.”

Victor drops a thick folder in Dean’s lap and all that Dean can see is the note written in slanted, curvy script.

  
[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=196p2a)

EPILOGUE

Winter is settling in. Dean can feel it in his bones. He spends more time each day layering on clothes just hoping to keep some of his warmth. Sammy’s called a record of three times today, much better than his usual five calls a day, always checking to see if Dean’s all right.

Of course, the truth is Dean will never know if he’s all right. How could he?

He found out later that Victor was the one to shoot Alastair. Dean and Castiel were rushed off in ambulances, except Castiel’s had never made it. The folder Castiel had sent contained all the information they would need to take down Michael Giordano and, more importantly, Lucifer. It’s been three months since then and Dean still doesn’t know what happened to Castiel. He tried not to think about it, about the state the Castiel had been in when they last saw each other. He pushes away the thought of what happened to them, of that terror that took over Castiel so completely. He drinks a lot more than he should.

The day after he was released from the hospital, Dean made Sam take him into the department. He left his badge and gun on Bobby’s desk and walked away.

Sammy had been relieved and he hadn’t even bothered to hide it. He went on some big spiel about how right he was, that he always knew that Dean could do so much more, could be so much more. He offered to help Dean go back to school, to help him open a business, whatever he wanted to do. Dean promised that when he knew what he would do, Sam would be the first to know.

Telling Vic had been harder. They’d been through a lot, had seen too much together. But Vic was always more cut out for this than him, always eager to follow the rules when Dean couldn’t do it, couldn’t let the bad guy get away on a technicality. It was harder for Vic to understand, for him to be happy, but he had accepted Dean’s choice as gracefully as he could. Which, for Vic, meant that he cussed Dean out and told him, “Fine! Go be happy, you asshole.”

Except Dean was the farthest thing from happy.

Three months since his phone last rang, since Castiel’s name and number glowed on his cell phone. Since he last felt warm skin and had warm blue eyes staring right through him. Some times, when the nightmares are chased away with the help of Jack, he dreams of those eyes and that skin, perfect in its imperfections. He dreams of moans against his ear and the sweat that makes their bodies stick together and when he wakes his eyes burn with tears.

The house is cold when he enters, but Dean can’t be bothered to turn on the heat just yet. Trying to save electricity and all that. But the fireplace works and that’s good enough for him most nights. His fridge is empty, hell, the house itself is almost completely empty. He bought it before all this started, when he decided that maybe a small townhouse was just what he needed to start over again. The bedroom upstairs has a mattress and boxspring on the floor, though as the nights gets colder he usually falls asleep by the fire, and he keeps his clothes in suitcases. He still hasn’t decided if he’ll sell the place, maybe to Sam. It’d be good to give Sam some place to start a life, maybe he’ll finally get a girlfriend.

The fire is just building up when the doorbell rings. Dean stares at the fire as if they’ll spit out the name of the person on the other side of that door, as if they’ll answer his prayers and tell him that Castiel is waiting there on the other side.

But when he opens the door, it’s just a man. A lanky man with blonde hair and a smirk curving his lips.

“Really? _You’re_ Dean Winchester?” He doesn’t seem impressed.

Dean frowns. “Uh. Yeah?”

“I guess, hmm,” The man looks him over, shaking his head, “I guess I thought you’d be taller.” He takes a small brown box from under his arm, huddling against a cold gust of wind. “Here.”

“What’s this?” How the hell can he be getting mail here? He hadn’t even bothered to stop by the post office and change his address.

“I believe it is a package. You’re not the sharpest tool, are you?” The man doesn’t say anything more, just turns on his heel and walks away, shoulders hunched against the cold.

Dean’s still standing there in shock, trying to figure out just what the hell is going on when the box he’s holding starts to ring. He shuts the door quickly, fumbling for the knife in his back pocket and ripping the box open. Hidden under brown paper is a small black cell phone, glowing blue as it rings. The number isn’t one he recognizes.

“Hello?”

It’s not complete silence on the other end of the phone. Faintly, off in the distance, Dean can hear the rolling of waves. There’s a hitch of breath, the rustle of clothing, and the awkward silence stretches on, broken only by the sound of a throat being cleared on the other end. Dean doesn’t want to allow himself the hope, doesn’t want to think that he could be this lucky. He’s opening his mouth to speak again, but the other beats him to it and his chest aches because he _knows_ this voice, even if he’s never heard it before, he _knows_.

The voice that answers him is rough, as though it hasn’t been used in years.

“Hello, Dean.”


End file.
